Posted on January 3, 2017
By Cody King, theIntelligencer
Madison County Planning & Development, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Heartlands Conservancy are joining forces and hosting two open houses for the Canteen and Indian-Cahokia Creek Watershed plans, the first from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 17 at the Madison County Farm Bureau and the second from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 19 at the Glen Carbon Senior/Community Center.
The open houses are being hosted to gather public input on the projects.
Stormwater Coordinator for Madison County Steve Brendel said these open houses are essential to the future development of the watersheds.
“It’s very important not only to them but to us to reach out and to explain to everybody why we’re doing the watershed plans and to gather the information from them to put into the plan. It’s to try to get their involvement and that’s why it’s so important to have these open houses,” Brendel said.
Attendees of the open houses will be able to learn more about the Canteen-Cahokia Watershed plan or the Indian-Cahokia Creek Watershed in progress, review the existing conditions identified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, help set goals for flood damage reduction and water quality, and talk to members of the planning team about next steps.
Brendel said with the open houses, attendees will be able to ask questions, learn about both projects, and contribute to future plans.
“What we generally do is we have some boards with maps that we put out, that show the watershed and the information on those maps is stuff that we’ve gathered so far. We were at the midway point with finishing up the water resource inventory with the Corps of Engineers and that information shows existing conditions in the watershed and it will also show some of the things that we’ve found through stakeholder engagement with other individuals that we’ve talked with so far and it gives everybody an opportunity for them to actually look at the maps and then maybe they’ll tell us more of what they’ve got in their local areas too,” he said.
Anyone from Bethalto, Bunker Hill, Caseyville, Collinsville, Dorchester, Edwardsville, Fairmont City, Fairview Heights, Glen Carbon, Maryville, Troy, Wood River and other surrounding areas are welcome to attend. The open houses are free of charge.
Brendel said all of the contributors to the watershed projects are anticipating a good turnout.
“I sure hope so. We really, really need to have a good turnout. I’m anticipating that if we get the word out to as many people as possible, then we get to find out what their opinions are and like I said, we are still trying to gather more information. Before we start this next year, we will be going into the writing the plan itself,” he said. “Once we finish with that, based on the information we’ve got there, information from our stakeholder engagement, things that we’ve gotten from our water resource inventory, the next step is we begin the writing of the plan itself. That’ll be going on throughout most of 2017 and we’ll come up with a draft at some point, we’ll start reaching back out again.”
Going forward, Brendel said after evaluating the public input and forming a draft, the county anticipates at least 20 projects that could come out of the watershed plans. However, it’s estimated that the projects won’t take place until the year 2018, depending on funding as well.
“The goal for the plan, each one of our watershed plans, is we want to identify a minimum of about 20 projects that we can address and start looking for funding resources to do these projects. The projects that we’re looking at doing, they’re going to directly address water quality and flooding issues in the watershed,” he said. “We’re always looking for different sources of funding, whether it’s through the EPA or other organizations. A lot of the times the Corps has grants available. The USDA has grants that are available; it depends on what we identify as things that need to be addressed in the watershed.”
Brendel said he hopes,” … we have a very good turnout and I look forward to seeing people and hearing their thoughts on it. Hopefully we’ll get more people that want to be involved with it.”
For more information about the Indian-Cahokia Creek Watershed or the Canteen-Cahokia Creek Watershed plans, visit the Madison County website at www.co.madison.il.us or contact Steve Brendel at 618-296-4665.
Source: theIntelligencer
