PATA History Pages

Well Test Pumping results delayed, See Sierra News article

Pat Marida is the Chair of the Central Ohio Sierra Club

From Sierra News

Pickerington Ponds Threatened by Development, Wellfield Pumping
By Pat Marida

The city of Pickerington is going through the process of rezoning 400 acres of farmland to residential, just to the south and east of the Pickerington Ponds. This is a process similar to what citizens successfully fought to keep the city of Columbus from doing on the east side of the Ponds in 1999. At that time, Pickerington City Council voted unanimously to oppose the Columbus rezoning. Now the Pickerington government is fighting hard to do the same kind of rezoning on the east side of the Ponds!!


Pickerington City Officials originally formed an “emergency” pre-annexation contract with Dominion Homes for 245 acres and with Homewood Corp. for 155 acres. By declaring an emergency, the city council was able to avoid the possibility of a public referendum on the subject.

Also under emergency to avoid a referendum, Pickerington Council voted in Dec. to fund a quarter-million dollars to drill an additional well, which will have the capacity to increase the wellfield withdrawal from 1 million gallons per day to 3.5 million gallons per day. The Ohio EPA, notwithstanding an outcry for a public hearing on the subject, quickly granted Pickerington a permit to drill the well and begin testing. The reason for the test pumping is to see if there is a connection between the wellfields and the Ponds. Pickerington shrugged off the possibility of such a connection when negotiating the annexation agreements with the developers. The 72-hour pump test began on Jan. 9 and extracted over 11 million gallons from the Diley Road Wellfield. Data from Burgess and Niple, the engineering firm representing MetroParks, administrators of the Pickerington Ponds Wildlife Refuge, showed that the water level declined about 3 inches in 2 Ponds monitoring wells between the start of pre-test pumping on Jan. 8 and the end of the test on Jan. 12.


In a 20-month test recently completed for MetroParks, Burgess and Niple found that indeed there was a connection between the wellfields and the Ponds. This study, however, was dismissed by Director John O’Meara of MetroParks as inaccurate. O’Meara had also testified before Columbus City Council in 1999 that their proposed rezoning for residential of the Ben Lamp property to the west of the Ponds would present no danger to the Ponds. Sadly, the members of the MetroParks Board are appointed, and traditionally they have been influential businesspeople in the community, steering MetroParks away from giving any political hassles to developers.


As of Feb. 8 the results of the recent pump test have not been released, even though they were promised within 10 days of the close of the test. While Pickerington’s engineers, R.D. Zande and Assoc. are now taking extra time to “study the data”, environmentalists speculate that since wellfields normally recharge in the winter, the political powers involved are trying to find a way to refute the data collected.

Because the Ponds are a fragile ecosystem, their close proximity to this potential construction makes them especially vulnerable to the environmental insults of development. The Ponds are an integral part of the high water table in this area. Hydric soils in the area are unsuited for construction, as water continuously seeps into these areas. Sump pumps in hydric soils will lower the water table, which could dry up the Ponds. Additional housing units will consume large amounts of water from the well fields, which could also cause the Ponds to become dry. Migratory birds need large amounts of open space, not just a few postage-stamp sized areas scattered here and there along their route. They need undisturbed areas free of predatory pets. They need wetlands and ponds free from runoff from automobile exhaust, oil, and lawn chemicals. They need a natural setting, free of rooftops and unnatural lighting.


The Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance (PATA) reports that recent efforts of area citizens have resulted in the successful validation of a referendum regarding the Dec. 5 Pickerington City Council Ordinance that mandates the automatic rezoning of all newly annexed land to medium density residential development, up to four houses per acre. Success in the referendum process allows the issue involved to go before the voters of the incorporated portion of Pickerington. This opportunity enables voters to become educated on all aspects of the issue before the Nov. election.
PATA also reports that zoning decisions are the driving component in their cost of community services escalation. Using data calculated by the Pickerington School Board Treasurer, a $150,000 home with one school age child will produce a net loss to their school district of $1,813. Multiplying this by a conservative estimate of 368 homes in the 2 proposed annexations, there would be a net loss of $667,000/year on the basis of one school child per home. This total is based on data over a year old, it does not account for all additional staffing and has no facilities costs included. Worse, schools are only one factor in the cost of community services as agricultural land becomes developed—sewer/water, police, fire, roads, etc. PATA believes that the answer is smart growth.


A great deal of information is coming to light about “Smart Growth” and community livability. To quote from Parris Glendening, Governor of Maryland, who spoke last fall in Columbus, “We can pretend that when we DO grow it somehow will not affect us: it will not alter our landscape, it will not pollute our environment, it will not raise our taxes, and it will not change our quality of life. Or, we can plan for growth the best way we know how... it is the common sense approach to growth."