Environmental Economics

A plan to turn over a state wildlife area in the Sawmill Road area to a developer has one EPA
official crying foul.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources wants to give the 17.85-acre Sawmill State Wildlife
Education Center, located near Sawmill and Dublin-Granville roads, to Worthington-based Klingbeil
Medical Partners.

The business group would develop the site in return for 43 acres along the west bank of the
Olentangy River in northern Franklin County, just south of the Delaware County line. The developer
would create wetlands on the riverside property, which the state would own.

The Sawmill property has been under state control since the mid-1990s. It was created in a
wetlands-conservation deal that developers of a nearby shopping center reached with the Ohio
Environmental Protection Agency.

“We will be trading an area that has limited public access for an area with enormous public
access,” said Carlo LoParo, a Natural Resources spokesman.

But on Jan. 4, Tom Harcarik, the Ohio EPA’s Isolated Wetland Permitting Unit supervisor, sent a
memo to George Elmaraghy, chief of the agency’s surface water division, complaining about the
deal.

Harcarik said the proposed deal threatens a 7.5-acre wetlands on the Sawmill property, one of
the last such areas remaining within Franklin County, and sends the wrong message about the state’s
preservation efforts.

via www.dispatch.com