Morehead officials recently gave an update about the Green Sinks project, and what aspects the community can help with.
Brian Storz is the Licking River Basin Coordinator. He said the project will be extremely beneficial to the town and region as it will help with controlling the flood plains.
“In Morehead, here in particular, a lot of the flooding issues are from the storm water runoff from the community that goes into small tributaries and then goes to Triplett Creek. And so, we’ll be able to catch a lot of that flood water and storm water into these Green Sinks basins and not only mitigate flooding but also catch a lot of that non-point source pollution runoff and stuff before it makes it into Triplett Creek,” said Storz.
Bob Hawley is the director and principal scientist at Sustainable Streams, the engineering group working on the project. He said that they should soon have data on how beneficial the Green Sinks will be.
“We are using the Army Corps of Engineers’ previous work, building off that and their model. And now that we know these five or so locations, we’re seeing if we change their model to represent these Green Sinks, how much does that drop the flooding?” said Hawley.
Those five locations are parcels of land that either the city already owned or were donated to the city for this project. The areas are places that flood frequently and are adjacent to Triplett creek or its tributaries. They are still looking for more land parcels, though.
Officials said landowners can donate their land to the project. The landowner would retain the deed, but all instillations and upkeep of the Green Sink would be handled by the city’s public works department.