By Mike Ekberg,Manager for Water Resources Monitoring and Analysis None of us wants to throw thousands of dollars down the drain or put our family’s health at risk. But if you have a septic system and don’t maintain it, you could be doing just that. It costs only $250 to $300 every four years to maintain your septic ...

By Sarah Hippensteel Hall, Manager for Watershed Partnerships Have you ever tried to live a day or even a half day without water? No morning shower, no morning coffee, no washing your clothes. Those are the simple inconveniences. But it’s more than that. No water for the doctor to wash her hands before treating you. No water f ...

By Mike Ekberg,Manager for Water Resources Monitoring and Analysis In my August 1, blogpost, "Climate Change: Is It Real?" we noted that our climate is always changing. Some people want to debate the cause, but that’s not nearly as important as planning for the changes that are expected. A warming trend will amplify the extremes in ...

By Mike Ekberg,Manager for Water Resources Monitoring and Analysis Is climate change for real? Is the world getting warmer, or is all this talk about a warming climate just a bunch of hooey? Let’s consider some recent findings. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), June 2016 was the warmest June ev ...

By Mike Ekberg,Manager for Water Resources Monitoring and Analysis Do you like to canoe, kayak, or row on the Great Miami River? Have you ever flipped your boat and ended up soaked with a mouthful of river water? Did you worry about getting sick? River users frequently ask me, "Is the water safe?" The answer is yes, in most cases.  ...

By Mike Ekberg, Manager for Water Resources Monitoring and Analysis Groundwater levels in the aquifer beneath downtown Dayton fluctuate throughout the year. Locally, groundwater levels often peak in winter or spring and decline to their annual low in the fall. However, we’re seeing changes to the normal up-and-down cycle of groundw ...

  El Niño contributed to a mild winter in the Miami Valley By Mike Ekberg, water resources monitoring and analysis manager If you thought the region got off easy this winter, you’d be right. And you can thank El Niño.  El Niños produce drier and warmer than normal winters El Niño affec ...

Groundwater is a better drinking water sourceWater quality crises are becoming more common, from algal toxins in Toledo to lead in Flint, Michigan; Sebring, Ohio and other communities. Could those crises happen here? It’s possible—but not likely—because this region pulls almost all of its drinking water from groundwater ...

The year 2015 has come to a close and before we get too far into 2016, I thought it might be interesting to review the year from a hydrologic perspective given all the recent attention to El Niño and the December 27-30 high water event on the Great Miami River and its tributaries. All in all, 2015 was a continuation of a rising tre ...

When you think of flood protection, you likely think of dams and levees. But there’s another element of flood protection that provides many additional benefits – floodplains. Floodplains are a bit like the utility player in baseball – called on to play a number of positions and always getting the job done. Here are sever ...

El Niño is getting a lot of media attention these days being blamed for floods, famine, and the spread of diseases. This year’s El Niño is shaping up to be one of the stronger, if not the strongest, El Niño in history. In fact, it’s drawing comparisons to the 1997 El Niño event, which is the stronge ...

In our last blog post, "Gauging the Value of Gages," we discussed the importance of stream gages to The Miami Conservancy District’s (MCD) flood protection activities. Now let’s talk about the importance of stream gage information on riverfront development, infrastructure projects, public safety, and water quality. Stream gage ...

For almost 100 years, communities along the Great Miami River have been protected by a system of dams and levees built by MCD. The system is an engineering masterpiece. Since their completion in 1922, the dams and levees have protected riverfront communities from Piqua to Hamilton with a 100 percent success rate! To maintain and properly ...

   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), June 2015 was the warmest June ever from a global perspective. The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces was the highest ever measured for the 136 years in which records have been kept. The combined average temperature across ...

Most of us trust our local elected officials with many of the more routine decisions that make our cities hum, without feeling the need to be in attendance. But occasionally, big decisions are made and you want to be there – or at least be aware. On July 29, the City of Dayton will consider important changes to its source water prot ...

Water use declined in the Great Miami River Watershedby 50 percent between 2005 and 2013, which mirrors a national trend.* With the dire predictions for water shortages in other parts of the world, this may seem like good news for our region, but there are consequences. Great Miami River Watershed: All of the land in green drains to the ...

Although water quality in our rivers and streams has seen great improvements over the past few decades, about 40 percent still fail to meet water quality standards. Excess nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus -- are a main cause. This failure is triggering additional regulations focused on wastewater treatment plants that could lead ...

Last year, pollution in Lake Erie halted Toledo’s delivery of its drinking water to 400,000 people for several days. It happened when water that Toledo pulls from the lake was found to have dangerously high levels of microcystin, a toxin that is produced by algae. Microcystin is highly toxic to the livers of humans and animals. When ...

The City of Hamilton has created the best tasting water in the world using groundwater from the Great Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer. The city received the gold medal for Best Municipal Water at the 25th anniversary Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting in West Virginia held in February. What is this "aquifer" anyway? Think of ...

Road Salts Contribute Chloride To Our Rivers The last couple of winters have had a strong grip on the region, making driving a challenge. Communities across the region use road salt to melt snow and ice and keep drivers safer, but at what cost? Use of road salt in the northern U.S. has doubled the amount of chloride in rivers and streams ...