Veterans monument discussion centers on water

Yahoo

4 days ago

May 27—LIMA — It has been a project more than a decade in the making, and on Tuesday, advocates for a new "Faces of War" Allen County War Memorial took their case to the Board of Commissioners, addressing concerns not about the content of the memorial but instead about the water running off it.
Allen County Veterans Memorial Foundation President David Paxton met Tuesday afternoon with the commissioners, along with attorney Jim Blair and Ryan Lefeld, an engineering consultant with Choice One Engineering, to discuss issues that had been raised concerning what effect this two-acre monument could have on water runoff, be it the amount of runoff or any contamination of the water. Wesley Sluga, an environmental supervisor with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, joined in the discussion via teleconference, telling the board of commissioners that as far as the water quality is concerned, there is no issue with the monument when it comes to sediment erosion or contamination.
"We ultimately identified that through the use of small pockets of pervious area and implementing runoff reduction methods which are non-structural ... they could use those non-structural runoff reduction practices to infiltrate stormwater and satisfy the [general permit application]," he said during the meeting.
While the EPA is responsible for ensuring water runoff quality, the issue of quantity falls on the county engineer's office, and the commissioners wanted to ensure that this would not cause additional runoff that could end up in a person's yard or field.
"There are basically two catch basin receivers that are already there, and it'll still be going into the same two receivers," Lefeld said. "The current county regulations require that additional water be held back."
For Paxton and Blair, the next step will involve Lefeld meeting with the county engineer's office to go over his data regarding runoff totals.
"I think we've answered the commissioners' questions," Blair said. "Whether or not those answers are sufficient to get the variance granted or not, it will depend a lot on the calculations that will be exchanged between our engineer and the county engineer."
Paxton is encouraging anyone interested in learning more about the project or in supporting it financially to go to https://bit.ly/45wL6tt.
"They'll be surprised with two things," he said. "They'll see the layout. They'll see 3-D images. If they scroll down a little farther, they'll see the list of 780 veterans, and all you have to do is click on one of them and a popup will come up and tell about that veteran."
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