![Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski and U.S. Congresswomen Marcy Kaptur at the site of the Van Fleet Ditch Drainage Improvement Project. (Credit: Lucas County Engineer’s Office)](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2022-10/van_fleet_ditch.jpg?itok=66g0u-O3)
Local, state, and regional guests toured Van Fleet Ditch in Lucas County, Ohio, the site of the county’s latest two-stage ditch restoration project. Speakers included representatives from the U.S. EPA, Ohio EPA, and U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.
Completed in September, the project constructed a two-stage channel along a 1.2-mile stretch of Van Fleet Ditch in Monclova Township. Often called a “ditch-within-a-ditch,” two-stage projects widen the existing ditch to create a low-flow channel with increased capacity and establish a second channel, or bench, with natural vegetation that is flooded during higher flows. The vegetated bench filters and reduces nutrient runoff by preventing sediment and other algae-feeding nutrients like phosphorous from entering the waterway, which flows into the Maumee River and then into Lake Erie. The project was funded in part by the GLRI.
Read the full news release