Explanation
This legislation authorizes the Director of Public Utilities to enter into an agreement with the National Center for Water Quality Research (NCWQR) at Heidelberg University to provide funding for the continued operation of the water quality tributary loading monitoring station on the Scioto River at Chillicothe. This operation will be conducted in collaboration with the Division of Sewerage and Drainage (DOSD) and includes intensive sampling, analysis of suspended sediments, and the calculation of the separate contributions of point-source and nonpoint-source loads of phosphorus and other pollutants in the Scioto River watershed upstream of the station. The first phase of this work was completed during calendar years 2014 through 2016, with a second phase running from calendar years 2017 through 2021. This third phase will occur during calendar years 2022 through 2026.
The NCWQR, founded in 1969 by Dr. David B. Baker, is a research organization within the science departments of Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio. The Heidelberg Tributary Loading Program (HTLP) began in 1974 and added the Scioto River monitoring station at Chillicothe in 1996. Presently there are 22 stations in the HTLP in Ohio and southeastern Michigan, which permit the calculation of pollutant loads from over 50% of Ohio’s land area. The NCWQR uses information from these stations to calculate the loads of nutrients, sediments, and pesticides delivered to Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The HTLP receives funding from a combination of state and federal agencies, foundations, industries, individuals through research grants, and contract or well test analyses. All of the resulting data, including those for the Scioto River Loading Station, are publicly available at the HTLP website.
Measurements of pollutant export from watersheds are used to compare the amount of pollutants derived from diffuse nonpoint sources, such as agricultural and urban storm runoff, with contributions from ...
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