Ten Mile Creek and Other Flooding

Recent heavy rains have caused severe flooding in areas of Sylvania Township near Ten Mile Creek, closing roads, flooding basements and crawl spaces and making a mess out of yards with trash and yard debris. Many have questioned why it seems that all of a sudden (in the last couple of years), these areas are experiencing flooding to this extent. Others blame over-development and say bad planning have finally caught up to an areas commonly known as the Black Swamp.

In reality, it is probably a mixture of these factors to varying degrees, and a few others such as development based on 35-year-old flood maps and yard debris clogging drainage routes. Recent information provided to the township also revealed that areas of Ten Mile Creek in Fulton County were cleared of log jams, which logically has contributed to the situation by increasing the rate of water flow in to the Township's portion of Ten Mile Creek.

Many township residents want to know what the township is going to do about this. This presents a challenging situation for Sylvania Township. First, Lucas County not Sylvania Township has an obligation to maintain Ten Mile Creek. Rough cost estimates of cleaning out the Creek run in the area of $5 million for 4-5 miles of Creek bed and include cooperating with agencies such as the Army Corp of Engineers. It is not just the monetary cost, but the time requirements necessary to coordinate and oversee such a project that is beyond the capacity of the township for at least this coming year if not a few years.

Another option would be to simply clear the log jams in the Creek, estimated to cost between $70,000 and $120,000 to clear about a dozen log jams. This is a more reasonable undertaking and one that I plan to have the township look at seriously, hopefully for this coming summer.

There are other areas of the Township which experience flooding in recent weeks. Some areas were simply overwhelmed with the amount of rain and barely-thawed grounds; others were areas of known problems that we are working to address. The Lucas County Engineer is planning to schedule a meeting to discuss flooding issues, including having the Lucas County EMA take reports of storm-related damage estimates in the next few weeks. I hope to coordinate with this meeting to provide a forum for Township residents to hear more about what can be done, what options may be available to the Township, and what can residents do on their properties to help minimize flooding by increasing water flow. The Township will announce a date as soon as it is set, and I encourage you to attend