Editorial: Time to clear river logjams

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Jan Larson
McLaughlin

Farmers along the Portage River have learned the hard way that bureaucracy can slow down progress as
effectively as a logjam can stop up a river.
But on Tuesday, the first trickle of progress in a couple years was reported on the petition to clean out
the south and east branches of the Portage River as they meander through the region.
It’s about time.
Jack Stearns, now in his mid-80s, has been waiting seven years for debris blocking the Portage River to
be removed.
Stearns, one of farmers tired of being flooded out of their fields, petitioned the county engineer for
the river cleanup in 2007, then watched as the project drowned due to its own mass.
The project is the biggest river cleanout in Wood County history, covering about 50 miles of waterway
spanning three counties, affecting nearly 10,000 land parcels, and costing an estimated $2.8 million.

To this day, no logjams or debris have been removed from the river.
No one questions that the project is massive. But many have criticized the lack of progress. The
petitioners did their job, collecting signatures and submitting paperwork. And they will pay for the
cleanup through assessments. Now it’s time for government to do its job.
After all, isn’t this where government ought to excel – handling an issue that is for the good of the
community but is just too big to be tackled by individual citizens?
Stearns started out the process a patient man. But as he watched the river rise with rainfalls that used
to flow without flooding, his patience ran out.
"We’re losing topsoil all the time," Stearns, who desperately wants the river cleared out in
his lifetime, said a couple years ago. "We’ve got to do something. If we don’t, we’ll end up back
in the Black Swamp."
Gary Harrison, who also farms along the river, shared Stearns’ frustration. Both farmers understand the
county has to follow ditch maintenance rules.
But the river follows no rules. "There is still one thing government can’t control and that is
Mother Nature," Harrison said a few years after the petition was filed.
Harrison has seen the river create detours due to logjams and frequent flooding. He has lost an estimated
eight acres to the river, not to mention all the crops that have been flooded out as the river swamps
new land.
"Mother Nature has reclaimed it," Harrison said.
When county engineer staff walked the river routes after the petition was filed, there were approximately
243 log jams, 4,300 dead, fallen or leaning trees. It is believed there are now many more downed trees
due to ash borer beetles.
Also causing delay is the fact that the Portage River petition is waiting in line behind petitions for
other ditch maintenance projects that were filed before it.
Wood County Engineer Ray Huber has said there is no legal requirement that the projects be completed in
the order that they were filed, but he has traditionally timed projects that way as a "common
courtesy to the citizens of Wood County."
Consequently, the river project languished in the engineer’s office, and the commissioners grew tired of
citizen complaints on the lack of progress.
So in the fall of 2012, the Wood County commissioners contracted with Wood County Soil and Water
Conservation District to perform the project design work at a cost of $73,000 and estimated it would be
finished in six months.
But instead of picking up speed, the river project seemed to stall out.
And so earlier this year it was Commissioner Joel Kuhlman’s turn to show his ire.
"It just seems totally unacceptable to me," Kuhlman said of the delays. "I do not
understand why I have not gotten a definitive answer on anything."
But finally, on Tuesday, some answers came in a project plan submitted to the county commissioners by the
soil and water conservation district. The plan covers such items as equipment to be used, work
schedules, existing utilities, right-of-ways, temporary easements and removal of obstructions from the
river. The plan also details treatment to damaged trees, grass seeding, disposal of removed materials
and leveling of work areas.
So it looks as if Stearns may get to see the day when the river no longer overflows his fields – let’s
hope it doesn’t take another seven years.

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