August 2011 A Quarterly Publication of the City of Fairfield, Ohio New grants offer relief for flood prone area he City of Fairfield has received an combined with a larger $2.7 million Federal area, which has been periodically impacted by Tunprecedented fourth major grant to Emergency Management Agency Hazard flooding. The designated homes involved in purchase homes in flood prone areas Mitigation grant that was awarded in 2010 for the most recent grant are located on Bandelier along the Pleasant Run Creek. The latest 17 additional homes. Court, Banker Drive, Crystal Drive, Cedar funding, a $670,160 Clean Ohio Grant from Breaks Court, Carlsbad Court, Ivanhoe Drive, the Ohio Public Works Commission, will be So far, Fairfield has purchased 31 homes in the Sir Lancelot Lane and Nottingham Place. Acquisitions will be voluntary. Closings will begin in August, with all property acquisitions completed by December 2013. Assuming all of the most recent 17 properties participate, the City will potentially have acquired 48 of the most at-risk properties. As with past purchases, the lots will be cleared and permanently preserved as open spaces. The resulting preserve is designed to provide additional flood protection for the remaining homes in the vicinity of the creek. The area will also serve as a contemplative area where residents will be provided with the opportunity to donate trees in memory or honor of loved ones. In addition to securing federal and state grants to buy the most flood-prone properties, the City has also initiated a variety of additional measures to minimize the flood threat along the Pleasant Run Creek. Retention basins have been constructed near Resor and Winton A Walk in the Park... roads to limit the flow, and ongoing maintenance of the creeks has added flow Lifelong Fairfield resident James capacity which minimizes flooding. Johnson pauses to take in the view from the new overlook along the Pleasant Run Creek. He remembers swimming in the creek as a child back Inside in the late 1930s not too far from the overlook. “The kids used to call it Symmes Creek back then,” said September 11 Ceremony planned ........ 3 Johnson. The overlook, just off the Early Census data released ................ 4 bend on Banker Drive, was constructed by Brendon Hoffart as a Emerald Ash Borer draws closer..........35 community project to earn his Is your summer project a winner?........36 designation as an Eagle Scout. Zoning laws limit grass to 8 inches ......37 The emerging park offers a walking Meet Fairfield’s K-9 teams ................38 path and will serve as the location for Citizen Police Academy seeks recruits ..38 a memorial grove where residents can dedicate plantings in honor or memory It looks yelllow, but it is all green........39 of loved ones. Groh Lane gets upgrades ........Back Page THE FAIRFIELD FLYER Consortium works to protect vast water reserves e rarely think about it when we To protect the water supply, area users joined aquifer, the Consortium developed the first Wturn on the tap for a cold, together in 1965 to form the Hamilton to multi-jurisdictional plan in the 1990s to refreshing glass of Fairfield’s crystal New Baltimore Groundwater Consortium. geographically identify critically sensitive clear water, but every drop of that water The group’s initial focus was to carefully groundwater areas. The plan, known as the starts from a natural reservoir deep monitor demand in order to avoid depletion Source Water Protection Plan, regulates underground. Called the Great Miami of the aquifer. By the 1980s, environmental potentially harmful substances within Buried Valley Aquifer, the water resource is laws and regulations empowered the groundwater sensitive areas. the source of water supplies for 300,000 consortium to actively protect the supply people. from contamination. To safeguard the As a result of new Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the Consortium is currently revising and April rains test treatment plant updating the Source Water Protection Ordinance. A new groundwater computer pril was among the wettest Fortunately, City Council had model has been developed that identifies the months in recorded anticipated months like April need to change some of the potential A pollution source boundary areas. In the history. The record 14.8 when it upgraded the inches of rainfall delayed farmers wastewater system in the coming months, studies will be conducted to from planting their crops and 1990s. As part of the $16 identify properties and businesses in the presented homeowners with a million upgrades, the critical zones. The goal is to have a new myriad of drainage concerns. construction designs included Source Water Protection Plan adopted by the relief sewer systems, reserve end of the year. The excessive rainfall also holding basins, and challenged the staff at the operational strategies that Consortium members include the cities of Fairfield Wastewater Treatment worked flawlessly. Fairfield and Hamilton, Butler County, Plant, where the relentless rains Greater Cincinnati Water Works, Southwest overwhelmed systems with record flows. Despite the overwhelming deluge of Regional Water District, Southwest Ohio Thankfully, decades of nationally recognized wastewater every day in April, the City’s Water Company and Miller/Coors Brewing. proactive work to seal the wastewater system Wastewater Plant and its staff processed flows from rainwater minimized the infiltration, but without a single environmental compliance For more information on these efforts, please no system can be immune from the levels of violation from the Ohio Environmental visit the Consortium’s website at rainfall experienced locally. Protection Agency. www.gwconsortium.org. Fairfield budgeting now for future water upgrades airfield’s water distribution network is Frelatively young by national standards. However, the Public Utilities Department is already looking years ahead to not only avoid service interruptions, but also to plan for major repairs that will be necessary in the future. Since Fairfield’s public utilities are largely self-funded by those using the system, advance planning will ensure the department is financially prepared for future updates. Last year, the City contracted with O’Brien and Gere Engineering to help develop a capital asset plan that will serve as a guide when the Plan reviews help identify areas that may be a problem years from now. Pictured (left to right) are Public Utilities City updates its capital improvements budget. Superintendent Andy Eddy, Public Utilities Director David Crouch and Distribution Foreman Gary Hoskins. With 169 miles of underground water mains, the planning is important. The other half of Fairfield’s system was 50 year replacement schedule of older mains, installed between 1970 and 1980, when pipes allowing those and future replacements to be Fairfield’s oldest water mains — about half of were transitioning to a much more durable budgeted. It will also provide for better those in use — are about 40 to 50 years old. ductile iron pipe material with a useful life of coordination with planned road work and They are comprised largely of cast iron mains. at least 100 years. The study will detail a 30 to repaving operations. ost of us remember Mwhere we were and Fairfield’s Fire Department has what we were doing memorialized fellow first responders who when the terrorist attacks of died in the World Trade Center when both September 11, 2001, towers collapsed. A large plaque at the targeted the World Trade entranc to Fire Headquarters on Nilles Road Center Towers in New York lists the names of firefighters and police offiers City, the Pentagon in who rushed into the structures to help others. Washington, and Flight 93 Among the names on the memorial is in Pennsylvania. On the Michael Lynch, the brother of Fairfield resident Colleen Parigen. He was working tenth anniversary of the 9/11 overtime that fateful day and was among the attacks, residents who gather first to enter the burning towers. Eleven out for a Remembrance of 12 firefighters in his company were killed. Ceremony at Village Green Park will likely remember that occasion as well. The ceremony is being planned and coordinated by Fairfield’s Police and Fire Honor & Remember Flag to Departments as a tribute to those who lost their lives and in celebration of emergency responders, civilians and military fly in honor of fallen soldiers personnel. The event will include live music, food, guest speakers and a new flag is flying outside the Fairfield Fund of the Hamilton Community candlelight vigil, among other activities Municipal Foundation. being planned. A Building following Fairfield City Residents The Remembrance Ceremony will begin Council’s unanimous who would with a concert at 4 p.m. featuring local support of the Honor like to fly the Fairfield band Thunderbay and The and Remember Flag. flag at their Jubilee Brass Quintet. Thunderbay will The flag has grown in home can perform a variety of popular music from popularity across the also have it the past 40 years. The Jubilee Brass country as a symbol of personalized Quintet will perform a variety of patriotic respect to Patriots in the name music leading up to the remembrance making the Supreme of a loved ceremony at 7:30 p.m. The quintet Sacrifice in the name one. For features vocalist and Fairfield resident Kim of freedom. information about the Honor and Remember Newcomer. In addition to the music, Flag, visit www.HonorandRemember.org. vehicles from various Butler County Promoted as a new national symbol of Police and Fire Departments will be on gratitude and respect, the flag was display around Village Green Park and conceived by the father of a young food will be available for purchase from soldier who was killed in 2005 while Hammann’s Catering. on patrol in Iraq a few days after Christmas. The flags were funded via Fairfield Mayor Ron D’Epifanio will serve a grant from the Michael J.