LFA hears updates on treatment wetlands around lake

CELINA - Grand Lake St. Marys Lake Facilities Authority is in line to receive a $143,494 grant to pay for the design of the $1.1 million Harmon Preservation treatment wetland project.

At this week's LFA meeting, Mercer County agriculture and natural resources director Theresa Dirksen said she received an email from the state indicating the LFA has been pre-approved for Section 319 funding through the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

"We're waiting for the feds to actually make the award to the state, and then the state has said yes, we are funded," Dirksen told commissioners from Auglaize and Mercer counties who comprise the LFA.

However, Dirksen cautioned that she doesn't actually have official documentation from the Section 319 program.

On Tuesday morning's meeting agenda was an item to approve a contract for professional services with Access Engineering for the Harmon Preservation project.

"From our end, we have no issue if you guys want to keep it on the table until you actually 100% know the funding's there," said Brice Schmitmeyer, president of Access Engineering Solutions.

LFA members agreed to keep the item tabled until the grant funding is made official.

"I'm really hoping I hear something in the next four weeks before the next meeting," Dirksen said.

In the meantime, Access Engineering Solutions will continue work on the project, according to Schmitmeyer.

"We'll be working on design here and kind of coordinate that with Theresa," he said. "We're kind of just starting to get really kicked off on the detailed design now that we kind of hammered the concept out already, just kind of getting the ball rolling on that right now. That's going to be the main focus of one of my designers here starting next week."

The LFA in late June signed off on a $1.115 million H2Ohio grant agreement for the Harmon Preservation treatment wetland project, which calls for the construction of 15 to 20 acres of wetland, preservation of 13 acres of forested area and establishment of 20 acres of upland native grasses.

According to the agreement, project construction must be complete by June 30, 2028.

LFA in June 2025 closed on the purchase of 51.5 acres of land along Koehn Road within St. Marys Township from Pear Investments LLC of Naples, Florida, for $1.49 million.

The commissioners entered into a grant agreement with the Ohio Public Works Commission in March 2025 for up to $1.13 million in Clean Ohio funds to help fund the purchase.

The grant dollars covered about 74% of the purchase, with the remaining $345,000 donated.

In other news this week, Dirksen reported VTF Excavation of Celina has made substantial progress on the installation of an 8-foot-tall observation deck at the Prairie Creek wetlands. The observation deck was donated by Dynamic Weld of Osgood.

"I went out there last week early and looked at it with them because it is unfinished," she said. "The planks on the steps need to be installed. There's a couple cables that align the staircase that are snapped that need to be replaced, and then, unbeknownst to me, there's a place for a slide, and I don't know that we need a slide or want a slide on top of our hill."

VTF Excavation, she said, plans to enclose the two sides where the slide is supposed to be connected.

"There's going to be some extra cost for them to finish it," she said. "VTF's supposed to be putting a rough estimate together to finish that, labor and materials to finish it. But it looks nice. It's a great view."

A gravel path also needs to be established, Dirksen said.

"They still have to level off the spoil pile because it's pretty uneven and it needs to be seeded, and then we need to reseed around the settling pond. It did get seeded once, but nothing's growing," Dirksen said. "So my thinking was if we don't get a bunch more rain this fall they could still hopefully be able to get out there, level it, and then we would seed it in the spring. Because there's a lot of ragweed and undesirable vegetation on the mound. So unfortunately the contract's got to remain open probably until the spring."

VTF Excavation was awarded a $126,742.60 contract to expand settling ponds along the inlet modifications at the treatment train to ease issues with the pump rates at the property. The pump rates have continuously gotten lower over the years, and crews have had to repeatedly rebuild the pumps, which has become costly over time.

The property includes roughly 30 acres of constructed wetlands, 70 acres of forested wetlands and 100 acres of littoral (shoreline) wetlands. It's located on the south side of the lake on State Route 219, east of the Aqua View Estates subdivision, and was Grand Lake's first treatment train, built in 2012.

Treatment trains or developed wetlands like Prairie Creek have been developed near a series of tributaries around Grand Lake with a goal of reducing the amount of phosphorus and other nutrients entering the lake, where they can feed algal blooms.

Schmitmeyer also offered an update on work at the Beaver Creek treatment wetlands on the south side of Grand Lake. Shinn Bros Inc. of Celina snagged a $178,000 contract to construct a second pump station and perform associated work at Beaver Creek.

"They were hoping to start about two weeks ago before we got all the rain," he said. "They're thinking moving in mid to late next week to get started with putting that additional pump station in and then they have some piping to put in also."

The project will increase the amount of water going through the Beaver Creek treatment wetlands by 500,000 to 600,000 gallons per day, bringing its daily total to around 1 million gallons per day.

Local wetlands in 2025 processed more than 760 million gallons of water and removed a substantial amount of the nutrients that potentially would fuel unsightly and toxic algal blooms in Grand Lake.

Lake officials believe they will hit the elusive goal of a billion gallons this year.

"We're at 970 million gallons of water treated this year," Dirksen said Tuesday morning. "If we can continue to pump for a couple more weeks or we get more rain flow through the systems, we should hit a billion gallons this year."

Asked about potential water restoration initiatives for 2027, Dirksen said she needs the assistance of property owners to pursue additional wetlands and stream restoration projects.

"Land's only going to be harder to come by with prices," she said. "I'd love to do some sort of stream restoration again in the watershed, like we did at the Elks, but again finding the right land owners to do that is a challenge."