The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) has approved a three-year pilot test that will begin this summer to assess the effects of adding wetlands close to a wastewater treatment plant’s four lagoons. Mercer County, Ohio, is installing six acres of wetlands at the plant in a bid to further enhance the quality of discharge that flows into a nearby creek and ends up in Grand Lake.
The county Sanitary Director believes this will be one of the first Ohio EPA-authorized wetlands pilot studies at a wastewater treatment plant.
It is hoped that the test will show that the wetlands act as an extra safeguard against phosphorous loading into Grand Lake. Phosphorous is the food source of toxic blue-green algae that have prompted a recreational no-contact order since 2015.
