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Huron River Watershed Council looks at green infrastructure in Chelsea area

By Lisa Carolin

What should the City of Chelsea, Lima Township, and Sylvan Township do to preserve their natural spaces?

Representatives from those municipalities attended a meeting in Chelsea City Council Chambers Sept. 20 to learn the results of the visioning session held May 9 about their natural area green infrastructures. It’s one of the projects of the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC).

The HRWC encourages green infrastructure, and Kris Olsen and Ric Lawson, who work for the HRWC, presented maps of the natural areas in Lima and Sylvan Townships and made suggestions for adding green space in the City of Chelsea.

“The idea is to figure out where those areas are that you want to keep protected,” said Olsen. “Lima Township is primarily agriculture, Sylvan Township is mostly natural areas, and the City of Chelsea is mostly developed. How do we link these natural areas together?”

The HWRC deals with recreation, quality of life, pollution, and with water quality as its main issue.

“We have two ways to look at the green infrastructure concept – what are the green areas that we can protect, and when we look at the already developed areas like the City of Chelsea, what can we do to go back in and add infrastructure to better treat water coming off those properties,” said Lawson.

Lawson took information from the visioning session and divided the municipalities into publicly owned land, residential areas, and commercial properties.

“In downtown Chelsea, I see a couple of good opportunities,” said Lawson. “The City owns parking lots where green islands could be built, driving more rain into the ground instead of into gutters.”

He suggested building planter boxes along Main Street, and Mayor Melissa Johnson said that the City is putting a rain garden on the Palmer Lot.

Olsen shared a success story in Lyndon Township, which worked with the HRWC three years ago and has since added ordinance language requiring setbacks and buffers from lakeshore and streams to protect water quality.

Lyndon Township used a map of its green infrastructure to successfully oppose a sand mine proposed that would have fragmented a major natural area hub.

“We now have a state park (Pinckney Recreation Area) instead of a sand mine,” said Sally Rutsky, a member of the Lyndon Township Planning Commission, who attended the meeting.

The next step will be for the three municipalities to decide what they want to do with their natural areas including making policies, building awareness, and offering education.

Olsen said she’ll plan to visit both the Lima and Sylvan Planning Commission meetings.

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