(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

Whether it's transportation, planning, or water and air quality management and planning, not much goes on in the Toledo metropolitan area that doesn't involve, the Toledo metropolitan area council of governments, otherwise known as TMACOG.

Joining us to talk about their activities is the president of TMACOG, Tim brown, and Kari Gerwin, the Director of Water Quality Planning.

Welcome both of you to Journal today.

- Thank you.

Good to be with you.

- Yeah, and Tim, if you want to, maybe for folks who aren't as familiar with TMACOG, talk a little about its history, its background, how it came about why it came about that sort of thing.

- Sure, well, in 1968, the federal government basically said to all the major metropolitan areas around the country, hey Toledo, hey Cleveland, hey Monroe county, Michigan, hey Wood county, Lucas county.

We're not going to give you direct federal funding anymore for federal infrastructure.

We're gonna require that you plan regionally.

These are taxpayer dollars and they ought to go towards the free flow of citizens and commerce throughout a metropolitan region and not to individualize projects.

And it really was a really move by the federal government.

It really fostered cooperation, communication amongst the metropolitan and the suburban areas to sit down at a table and start communicating.

And it really opened a vast network of other areas in which councils of governments could work together and collaborate.

Since then, TMACOG's membership has continued to grow.

We have five counties that are part of our make-up both in Ohio and Michigan, 141 members that range from local governments, the port authority, businesses, education.

We've got members like Monroe county, community college and UT, BGSU, Penta, and Owens.

And they all play a role we've got under the transportation way, numerous committees that help us to meet the federal government's, multi-modal approach to doing transportation projects.

So we're not just looking at roads and bridges, we're looking at rail, we're looking at public transit, pedestrian and bike ways.

And then in the 1970s, the federal government did something called, the Clean Water Act.

And when TMACOG added another programmatic area, which Kari Gerwin heads and that's our water quality department that looks at helping our region to meet federal Clean Water Act standards.

Now we've talked a lot about algae over the years and its impact on lake Erie and that's something Kari, can spend some time on, but our members basically decided that, hey, we really wanna ramped up, water quality initiative for the region and our members throughout Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan pay dues that help us to afford our water quality efforts.

So that's a little bit of the history and how we came about and it's worked exceedingly well for the region since then, when you look at some of the things that the region has accomplished, and I'll just touch on some transportation things, Steve.

Fort to Port and enhanced highway, connecting Toledo to Fort Wayne.

There were many fatalities on the old Fort to Port highway system, and that's a major freight corridor, connecting our two cities.

Getting that to a four-lane highway took over 20 years and all of that planning and that work went through our regions partners and through TMACOG.

The I-280 Veterans Glass City Skyway bridge, was also a major transportation project that went through TMACOG over the course of many, many years, most recently, regional water.

For years and you hear Steve, elected officials around the region have lamented the very disjointed water prices.

Some communities were paying 175% more for water than what some customers in Toledo were paying.

And then at some point prior Mayor of Toledo said, "Hey, suburbs, that water we're selling you at a huge markup, we want 40% of the income tax."

- Right.

- Your community was going to get if you develop jobs with our water.

So as you can imagine, once those kinds of, restrictions and demands rolled out, I like to say the natives grabbed their pitchforks and stormed the castle.

(Kendall laughs) And that castle was really TMACOG.

They said, help us to solve this.

And over the course, again, of several years of negotiations and discussion, we were able to get the region and the city of Toledo to come together on a regional water plan that will equalize rates over the course of the next several years and take away future disadvantages with regard to the punitive approach of, hey, if you create jobs in your community, we want to a big piece of that pie.

So, all these things have taken time, but all of these things have been extremely meaningful to the citizens of our region.

And we like to say that none of them are necessarily, glamorous and the stuff that people talk about every single day, but they're the nuts and bolts things that happen that impact our lives, our economy and our place in a country that, focuses more on connectivity and water resources.

We're really in a good spot in Northwest Ohio.

I think because our partners in Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio have come together to solve some of these issues that we've had over the years.

- Right and when you talk about water and Kari you can jump in here with what you're currently doing.

That was for the longest time.

Well, 40, 50, you could go back as far as you want.

That was always a key point of, I don't know, disagreement would be putting it mildly.

And that seems to have settled down.

So Kari, from your perspective, you're the Director of Water Quality Planning.

This agreement is probably made your job at least a little bit easier, I would assume.

- Well, certainly the agreement has, changed the focus of our conversations for several years.

We were very much focused on the region, a lot or discussion.

But we continue to focus on regional sewer planning, stormwater planning, drinking water on the treatment side.

So with the algae bloom in lake Erie, as we know back in 2014, we had a pretty big crisis when we weren't able to, when the city wasn't able to provide drinking water to 500,000 ratepayers because of the algae issue.

So I'd say since then, we've really shifted focus to that conversation and talking about how we can impact what's going on on the land and an agriculture to make sure that the nutrient loads that are coming down the Miami river into lake Erie are not feeding an algal blooms that'll have an effect on 500,000 citizens like it did in 2014.

So that's really been the focus of our conversation lately.

- Yeah and people take for granted stormwater as being just something that flows down a Creek or a ditch or into the drain in front of their house, that sort of thing.

But it's a really critical part where, the water that comes through your faucet gets all the attention.

But the reality is, as you mentioned, all of that storm water, is a difficult thing to manage.

And of course then the wastewater too.

When we come back in just a moment, of course, one of the things I know that's going on in Lucas county in the Swan Creek watershed, is a plan to really deal with storm water, the drainage and all of that.

And we can talk a little about that, or, and of course to the whole wastewater thing, 'cause there are still are large parts rurally that operate on private sanitation systems.

So that's an issue too.

We'll be back in just a moment with the president of TMACOG, Tim Brown, and the Director of Water Quality Planning, Kari Gerwin back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us here on the journal.

Our guests are Tim Brown, the president of the Toledo metropolitan area, council of governments and Kari Gerwin, the Director of Water Quality Planning.

And that Kari, when we left the last segment, we were talking about some of the initiatives, some of the activities and the seriousness and the value of doing a good job, managing both storm water and wastewater.

So expand on that a little bit more, the things that are underway to improve those systems, there's not as glamorous as some of the things that we've talked about earlier, but still incredibly important.

- Sure and I'll, I'll go back to what Tim had mentioned about the Clean Water Act.

So 50 years ago, the Cuyahoga river caught on fire for the last time.

And that really did inspire the Clean Water Act and brought attention to the need to, (throat clearing) treat wastewater and ensure that municipal and industrial wastewater, are not polluting our waterways.

So one of the things that came out of the Clean Water Act was an area wide water quality management plan or the 208 plan for the TMACOG region.

208 refers to that section of the Clean Water Act.

And that requires us to manage and plan for wastewater treatment on a regional level.

One of the things that we do with that is we also identify those areas that are more rural areas that are critically unsewered.

So these are areas that depend on septic systems and smaller package plants, for example, for say mobile home parks to treat wastewater.

And generally when these things are working well, they don't contribute a whole lot of pollution to our waterways.

However, we know that in a lot of cases, these systems will not be managed or maintained for several years.

And at that point we ended up seeing a lot of raw sewage, nutrients and bacteria entering our waterways.

So through our 208 plan, we've identified where those areas are.

We work with our local health departments to identify those.

And we hope to when dollars are available, allocate those infrastructure dollars to either connect those areas to sewers or to repair and maintain those septic systems.

- Well, and you make a good point with regard to finances because bringing water to an area is not nearly as expensive as moving that water away after the fact.

And as you said, sewer systems are inherently more expensive to build and require a lot more infrastructure.

And yet, large portions of Lucas county, just to focus on one Wood county, all of the counties have, as you said, underserved areas, when it comes to actual infrastructure for that, is it hope that that money will become available (murmurs) some of this infrastructure money will go to, as you said, addressing a couple of the more critical areas that have been identified in the region?

- Yes, we're optimistic that the funding that is coming down from the federal infrastructure bill, as well as funds through H2Ohio and other state level funding mechanisms, will be available to either connect these systems to sewer systems or upgrade them.

So on our end at TMACOG, we are helping our members to be prepared for that by letting Ohio EPA know where our critical areas are, so that when those dollars are available, they can feed them directly into our regional priorities for our sewer connection.

- Yeah.

- And Steve let me just add.

- Sure.

- Where credit is due our governor, Mike DeWine has really done a phenomenal job of placing focus on our efforts to address, lake Erie, water quality, and ultimately water quality throughout the state.

There have been instances in the past of algae on other Ohio bodies of water.

So, ultimately this is a program that will spread throughout the state, but the governor really wanted to focus initially on a (murmurs) and lake Erie.

And we really have to applaud him because it brought much needed dollars to help with that.

But, Kari mentioning some of the sewered areas unsewered areas, Lucas county also gets some credit for really taking a leadership role in making sure that we start to enumerate the sources of these nutrients reaching lake Erie.

And it's really helped us to have a really clear picture as to where the majority of the source comes from.

And it doesn't mean that even though I'll say, leaky septic systems are three or 4% of the problem, we need to squeeze that three or 4% down to 2% and we need to address these other areas.

But we know now that agriculture is in the upper 80% contributor to lake Erie's water quality was.

And, knowing that now and recognize that a few years ago, TMACOG's leadership suggested, let's not make agriculture our enemy because we know this number.

(throat clearing) We have to work together.

We need to understand what they're doing, what their best practices may be and how we can help.

And they need to understand our concerns at the base of lake Erie.

Why this is a problem when lake Erie has algae and people don't feel like fishing in our lake and they're not staying at our hotels, they're not bringing their family and going to restaurants.

And then maybe a day at Cedar point.

Algae is a real problem.

And a lot of other economic development ways, besides the very important reason, Kari mentioned earlier, and that was shutting down the water supply for the region.

So we created an agriculture committee at TMACOG, and we've got very important players in agriculture at our table and experts around discussing the things that we can do to help work together.

And one of the things I've said over the years is we've developed the heck out of our countryside.

When I was a kid, I remember my grandparents saying, "Hey, let's go for a drive in the country."

And you would drive for miles without seeing a house.

- Right - Now who can't drive a mile, without seeing a house.

And in spite of all the development, farmers are putting more food on our tables because they have improved ways of farming.

And those nutrients that have been added have helped yields and they're feeding the world.

So we can't knock them for rising to the challenge of more food and produce from less acreage.

But what we've got to do is strike a balance between those nutrients placed on a field, how it's done when it's done, and if it's even needed through technology, saving the farmer money, if they don't have to apply nutrients so that we can have a better balance.

And that's the goal of H2Ohio, and it's the goal of TMACOG's water quality committee.

And Kari and her team, she's got very good leadership that are really working on these issues every day.

- Yeah, we come back.

We can kind of finish that thought and talk about, maybe what we'll see from some of this infrastructure money, some of the ideas behind what we can apply that to.

Back in just a moment with Kari Gerwin Director of Water Quality Planning for Toledo metropolitan area council of governments and the president of TMACOG, Tim Brown back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us here on the journal.

Our guests are Tim Brown, the president of the Toledo metropolitan area council of governments and the director of water quality planning, Kari Gerwin.

When we left the last segment, we were talking about a water policy and the Kari, if you want to expand a little bit on what's on the agenda for water policy management in the TMACOG area.

- Sure, so, after the Toledo water crisis in 2014, our members really came together and said, "Hey, a lot of these issues are "very much policy-related."

We can put the right practices in the ground.

We can do the right practices at our water treatment plan or wastewater plant.

But a lot of this comes down to the decisions that are made every day at the local state and federal levels.

So something that we've been working on with our water quality committees, was the agenda for lake Erie.

This is a document water quality policy recommendations that we can take to the state legislature, we can take to the Ohio EPA, ODNR and Ohio Department of Agriculture and say this is the regional consensus around this particular issue.

And this is what our region in Northwest Ohio, who are greatly impacted by the algae issue in lake Erie.

This is what we think can be done about it.

So that's something that we've really taken off and run with.

We've gone down to Columbus during various hearings of the state legislature when certain bills that could be potentially harmful to water quality when those come up to the table, or when there are policies that are put on the table, that would be beneficial to water quality.

This allows us to engage directly with our legislators.

- Yeah, and one of the things that I was just thinking about when you were describing that obviously Ohio is not the only state involved in great lakes water quality.

Do you folks at team macaque get involved with the other states, Michigan, Indiana, all of those that are involved in that sort of great lakes consortium that talks about dealing with water quality across all the great lakes?

- Certainly Michigan is within our planning area.

So we work most closely with the agencies in Michigan, but the Miami river watershed, crosses the Indiana boundary as well.

And the great lakes watershed across as many states.

So we do work with those governments and groups that work across state boundaries as well on water quality issues.

- And those areas probably have their council of governments too, that have similar similar groups that deal with water quality as well.

Tim, one of the things we and Kari, we both talked about the amount of infrastructure money that is expected to come through the initiatives in Congress just recently, talk a little about how that's going to impact the transportation agenda for the Toledo area and the water quality agenda as well.

So that money we expect will be taken care of as we talk today, probably signed today.

And then we'll all start to see how that's going to roll out, but talk a little about the impact that should have, or we hope will have on our ability to deal with our infrastructure issues.

- Sure.

Well, again, where credit is due.

President Biden's leadership on investing in infrastructure is long overdue.

I mean, it's been part of TMACOG's transportation legislative agenda for decades that the federal government needed to step up and do more to address America's crumbling infrastructure.

And you give credit to Mike DeWine for his leadership in Ohio raising the gas tax.

And no one likes to think about new taxes.

But when you think about the fact that the last time the gas tax was raised in Ohio, it was in 2005 and it was two pennies.

And then think about the cost of all the in puts and how much more it's gone up since then and how much less we can do to address our crumbling infrastructure.

So this leadership from the federal side of infrastructure investment is just critically important, to getting us on the road to addressing so many different components of infrastructure, and it's a trillion dollars.

So there's gonna be a lot of money for roads bridge infrastructure, airports, lake Erie will benefit.

And that the bill includes, a billion dollars in new funding for the great lakes restoration initiative.

There's about 1.2 billion to address drinking water.

As we discovered from Flint Michigan, a few years ago, we've got some agent water distribution systems that in many cases have led and those need to be addressed.

Public transit is also a focus with $1.2 billion.

So there's a lot in there that we're excited about being on the front lines as the regional transportation and water quality planners.

We're excited that we're gonna be able to check off a lot more things on our list.

And Steve, I just wanted to mention that, we're also hopeful that we'll get some money for a project that also has been on our list for a number of years.

I know you and others have heard me lament that Northwest Ohio and Toledo is the only major metropolitan area area of Ohio that does not have unfettered direct highway access to Columbus and the interior of our state.

And that has fallen on deaf ears for many, many years.

But again, thanks to governor Mike Dwayne's leadership.

He understood it immediately.

And if we're gonna have a strong freight connection to Northwest Ohio and Northwest Ohio to the interior of the state, we have to address that roadway.

So we put in a quarter of a million dollars along with our counterpart in Columbus, a quarter of a million, (murmurs) match with 500,000.

And we have our first study to look at how we can improve Northwest Ohio's connection to the interior of the state.

And why is that important?

Look at what we've done to fix I-75, both south of Toledo, Michigan North of Toledo.

There's an ongoing project right now to completely replace the desal bridge over the Miami river.

And then I-75 through downtown Toledo.

- Right.

- And the Canadian government, is spending $700 million to build a brand new bridge, connecting Canada to the United States.

It will have more lanes for processing freight, and it will definitely have an impact on our economy in Northwest Ohio.

And the folks in Columbus, the governor recognized that they need a stronger connection to our corner of the state to benefit from the Canadian government's investment.

So we were excited about the projects that we've had in our long range planning that are in process right now, and all of the projects that we're gonna get to work on as a result of president Biden's leadership on infrastructure investment.

- Yeah, and the cost is, I know people look at it and say, gee, how expensive could be to replace a road, to do this.

And I remember talking with a county engineer once who said, five years ago, if you bought a thousand dollars worth of asphalt, and obviously you buy a lot more than that, you got a thousand dollars worth of asphalt.

If you spent a thousand today, you'd really only get about $600.

That's how much the cost of those materials has gone up.

What used to buy you a thousand dollars worth of something, now it gets you $600.

So the infrastructure issues are huge out there.

And as you said, we continue to grow.

And of course around us, the connection to Canada, all of that, it's a significant issue for us.

And hopefully a lot of that money can go to restore and rebuild and add on to the infrastructure system that we have with regard to transportation.

Kari when we talk about water, what are some of the things that you might look at as there on the horizon or over the horizon that now you may be able to address because there may be additional money for?

- Well, I think the biggest thing that our communities are going to have to address is a changing climate.

As we started to see our rain events are becoming more intense, they're becoming more frequent, and I'm not sure how it is across most of the planning region, but I know here in Toledo where I live, I'm seeing that in flooding, in the streets and in inability to manage all of that storm water.

So that's something that I really see our local governments allocating some of that money toward just being prepared and resilient for a changing climate.

- Yeah, and that is, (murmurs) you're right.

We seem to not get showers anymore.

We get large thunderstorms with inches and inches of rain, as opposed to a half an inch, an inch here, things like that.

And the farmers for sure, this fall understood what that meant when all that rain arrived.

And, they're still in the fields here in the middle of November, and that's not really where they want to be at this time of year.

So that's a really good point.

Tim Brown Kari Gerwin we'll have to leave it there.

We're a real out of time here on the journal, but we appreciate you taking the time to be here and look to have you back again, to talk more as all of these initiatives and the new ideas and projects rollout from the Toledo metropolitan area, council of government and all its partners and members.

So thank you again for being here.

- Thank you, Steve.

Always good to be with you.

- It was great to talk to you.

- And you can check us out on wbgu.org and of course watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU PBS.

We'll see you again next time on The Journal.

Good night and good luck.

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