This month, Findlay City Council voted to move forward with design and engineering for the recreation area. The city is now working with a design firm to explore various features, which could include approximately two miles of walking and running paths, a multipurpose stage, splash pad, kayak launch, and fishing areas. Plans also call for a 460-foot pedestrian bridge to connect both sides of the Blanchard River.
Rainfall over the past few days led to minor flooding in the area on Sunday. Several roads in low-lying areas were impacted.
Heavy rain over the past few days have resulted in flooding along area rivers and creeks. On Tuesday afternoon just northwest of Arlington, the Eagle Creek at County Road 24 in Hancock County was running quite high and spilling out of its banks. Water from the creek spilled into nearby fields resulting in at least several inches of water. The fast moving water nearly touched the bottom of the bridge. At this particular location, the roadway was not covered in water.
A few roads in low-lying areas around West Central Ohio are impassable after rivers and creeks breached their banks. The Allen County Engineer’s Office says that Dutch Hollow and Ridge Roads in Sugar Creek Township have been closed because of high water from the Ottawa River. The National Weather Service in Northern Indiana says the Blanchard River in Ottawa is expected to crest Tuesday and the Auglaize River at Ft. Jennings will crest Monday both at minor flood stages.
A project in Ottawa is already seeing positive results. The diversion channel, located between two sections of the river on the west side of Ottawa, started construction last year.
The Putnam County Office of Public Safety says it’s all a waiting game to see how bad the Blanchard river will flood or not. The levels of the river are relatively low as of now, but several factors in the spring will contribute to how high the waters will get. The director of public safety, Mike Klear, says portions of the river flood every year no matter what, but it’s up to the weather this spring to determine.
With the abundance of rain predicted through the weekend, flooding may be an issue in some areas. Hancock County is no stranger to flooding events and some of the heavy precipitation that Ohio will see is headed their way. The Blanchard River level projection could be up to 12 feet, which means moderate flooding. In the past couple of years, over 50 properties have been mitigated in hopes to yield flooding of the river.
The Blanchard River Water Partnership recently teamed up with the Nature Conservancy for a project to help reduce the flooding in Findlay.
For the past couple of days the two organizations have been hard at work planting trees for their new wetland project in Findlay. With the help of university of Findlay students and volunteers from both the Watershed Partnership board and the Nature Conservancy they successfully planted a little over 2,000 trees along seven acres of township road 89.
The Blanchard River Watershed Partnership is educating the community on how the water quality of the river affects their quality of life. The group held an informational presentation and tour to show community leaders what they do for the river and why it’s important.
Findlay experiences one of its biggest floods in nearly two years. City officials say they're working on projects to prevent this from happening in the future. The Blanchard River started flooding Sunday and eventually rose a little over half a foot over the major flood stage of 13.5 feet. This is the first flood to reach this level in Findlay since July 14, 2017.
