Editor: Wet weather could delay the breaching of the levee separating the Olentangy River and the Olentangy River Wetlands Research Park. Reporters who want to cover the event, please call Bill Mitsch at (614) 292-9774 on June 13 to confirm the restoration project is still on schedule. Weather permitting, work should begin shortly after 8 a.m. on June 14 and last two or three days.

  COLUMBUS, Ohio - Restoring part of a 12.6-acre woods to a forested wetland at Ohio State University's Olentangy River Wetlands Research Park will begin Wednesday, June 14 as four notches are cut into the levee that separates the research park from the Olentangy River.

The restoration of the forested wetland is part of a permit approved by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August 1998. The permit allowed the Ohio Department of Transportation to replace 4.5 acres of wetlands affected by the construction of the Spring-Sandusky interchange Downtown with 18 wetland acres at the research park and two other sites.

"We evaluated a lot of alternatives and tried to find something in the watershed that was close, and the proposal from the research park looked like the best opportunity to have success restoring wetlands," said Tom Linkous of the Ohio Department of Transportation's Bureau of Environmental Services. "Plus, having the long-term involvement of the university managing the wetlands ensured it would be a permanent benefit."

The notches in the levee will be made with the smallest equipment possible - probably a small backhoe and a truck - so the least damage possible will be done to the research park, Linkous said. The breach locations have been selected to create the best possible flow patterns through the forest. About 6 acres of the 12.6-acre woods are expected to convert back to wetlands.

"This will be a quadruple bypass surgery for the forestland along the river," said Bill Mitsch, Ohio State University professor of natural resources and director of the Olentangy River Wetlands Research Park. "The area along the river is supposed to flood.

By allowing water to flow through the system, fresh water with nutrients from the river will help the trees grow, and leaves and other material washed from the forestland will help the food chain in the river."

The forested wetland area also will serve as a buffer zone between the land and the river. It will absorb chemicals and other potential pollutants washing from the land before they reach the river and absorb flood water from the river so it does not impact surrounding land, Mitsch said.

Three of the breaches notched into the levee will be about 40 feet wide. The fourth will be 20 feet wide. But water will not come pouring through when they are cut because the river is not high enough, Mitsch said.

"At the river's normal stage, water will not flow through the notches," he said. "Water will only enter the forested wetland when the river floods, which occurs six to 10 times a year."

The flood potential of the site was studied to be sure notching the levee would only allow more water into the research park and not surrounding areas, Linkous said.

The area was a wetland before the artificial levee was put into place along the river more than a century ago. Bottomland forests such as this are very common along all major rivers in this part of the world, Mitsch said.

"The forested wetland is different from the other two types of wetlands already at the research park, so it contributes to an extraordinary variety of wetlands we have at OSU for students to study," he said. "This type of restoration will give us something to evaluate for years to come. Several faculty and students are already researching background data on what the forested area is like before flooding, so it can be compared to data collected several years from now."

Written by Kyle Sharp, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

Ohio State University Extension

News and Media Relations

Sharp.44@osu.edu

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