Exerpts from a Columbus Dispatch story by Spencer Hunt:
– Though Grand Lake is still stained green, a coalition of area business leaders, state officials and farmers say it is getting better. And they are confident that it will one day be clear.“We’ve got a lot of strong-willed people,” said Milt Miller, of the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission, a group the banker helped form and now works for as its lake-restoration manager.
– Miller has organized local, state and federal support to make improvements, including a manmade wetland that filters water coming into the lake from Prairie Creek, one of seven that feeds the lake.The 9-acre complex pumps stream water through two treatment ponds designed to filter out sediment and then through a man-made wetland, where plants soak up the dissolved phosphorus before it gets into the lake.
– More than 150 farms with livestock located south of the lake also will follow mandatory manure-management plans that call for regular soil tests to determine how much, if any, manure needs to be spread to grow crops.