Louisville's Mill Creek could be among 'largest urban stream restoration projects' in US

Sometimes, the journey of a potential $20 million environmental restoration project begins with a donation of $100,000.

That was the idea, at least, when The Nature Conservancy recently donated the money to the city, which will be used to study southwest Jefferson County’s Mill Creek ahead of a massive renovation effort. Officials said they hope to transform about eight miles of the disheveled waterway between Sylvania Park in the Pleasure Ridge Park neighborhood and the Mill Creek Generating Station power plant, just south of Valley Station.

"It's still in sort of planning and permitting stages. They haven't moved any dirt or done any work yet," said David Phemister, director of the nonprofit conservancy's Kentucky branch. "But eventually, if it all goes according to plan, it's going to be massive – one of the nation's largest urban stream restoration projects."

The $100,000 donation was recommended for approval in November by the city's Parks and Sustainability Committee, with member Nicole George calling it a "win-win" for the area's environment and cultural scene, and is pending before Metro Council. It's part of a $1 million sum given to the Nature Conservancy in 2016 by LG&E in a settlement to dismiss a 2014 lawsuit by the Sierra Club after the utility was sued over discharges into the Ohio River from the Mill Creek power plant's ash pond.

For Courier Journal subscribers:Many people with diabetes in Kentucky won't benefit from $30 cap on insulin. Here's why

One of the settlement's terms was that the $1 million paid out to the Sierra Club and given to the conservancy would go toward environmental projects in southwest Jefferson County, where the power plant operates.

Some of that $1 million has been used on other nearby initiatives, according to conservancy spokeswoman Hayley Lynch, including dam removal on the Green River and tree plantings in the area.

But the $100,000 donation toward the Mill Creek proposal is one of the first steps in a project that Bennett Knox, natural area parks administrator with Louisville Parks and Recreation, believes could create a new recreational area as well as a key cog between natural spaces in the region.

It's a relative drop in the bucket – efforts are underway to secure the millions of additional dollars needed to fund the project – but Knox said the project that money would fund could be a boon for those who live nearby.

"The end goal for us is creating a wonderful addition to the park system to serve residents of southwest Louisville while protecting ... land banked parcels that could be a tremendous community asset," Knox said last month during a trip to the creek next to Peniel Missionary Baptist Church, on Greenwood Road.

The city owns much of the land alongside Mill Creek, which meets the Ohio River in far southwest Jefferson County and again several miles north by the Cane Run Generating Station. But much of the land by the waterway has eroded, leaving deteriorated habitats for wildlife as well as a stagnant stream that can hardly be used for fishing and canoeing, Knox said.

The goal, he said, is to turn the long-neglected creek into a winding "1,000-acre park" that extends along the water, opening up new outdoor recreational possibilities for those who live in the area as well as connecting several other parks and greenspaces on the southern edge of Jefferson County.

For the winter:Want to go sledding in Louisville? Six designated hills to try

The $100,000 will specifically go toward studying how trails along the creek could connect to other nearby outdoor assets, Knox said. The South Points Scenic Area and a link to the Louisville Loop are nearby, he noted, and the project plays into the Southwest Greenways Master Plan, a proposal funded more than a decade ago aiming to improve outdoor amenities and encourage healthier living in southwest Jefferson County.

"Bringing this stream corridor and the 1,000-acre park into our management structure from natural areas just opens up a lot of opportunities related to environmental education programming that we can do as a department, engagement with community and volunteers in improving habitats in the area, and then just the recreational opportunities that it can create," Knox said. "We've got schools in that area that can, as this project is implemented, take advantage of this for field trips."

Knox and Louisville Parks and Recreation aren't alone in the planning process. Louisville MSD is assisting to make sure the creek's water is clean and safe, according to environmental partnerships liaison Erin Wagoner, and to help the stream's water quality improve. A cleaner and more vibrant Mill Creek with flowing water, she said, could improve drainage and flood protection as well as support local wildlife.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, meanwhile, is helping to get the funds together for the project and plans to take on a major role with construction and restoration efforts once approved, according to Rob Lewis, an engineer with the department. Wagoner said all three organizations will play an important part as the project moves forward.

"We're really grateful for the work that Metro Parks is doing, and the work that Fish and Wildlife is doing," Wagoner said. "This could be a real opportunity to help improve the Mill Creek corridor."

The project is in its infancy, to be clear. It could be two years before shovels are in the ground, Lewis said, "and that two years might be a little ambitious."

More headlines:Louisville's mass COVID-19 test site opens as omicron cases rise

It'd take time to implement it as well. The project is split into five phases, with a separate portion of the stream being reworked during each phase, and Bob Hawley with Kentucky-based environmental consulting firm Sustainable Streams told the Parks and Sustainability Committee in November that work on each phase could last one or two years.

Funding, too, is a question. Work on each phase could cost up to $5 million, Hawley noted in November, with a total price for the yearslong project that could climb past $20 million. Enough funding for "at least a full segment" is currently available, he said, but more money would need to be acquired in years moving forward. 

Knox said Fee-In-Lieu-Of funding could be pursued – the FILO program takes cash collected by the Army Corps of Engineers from developers who have built projects that impacted stream and wetland habitats and gives the money to preservation projects. Louisville MSD is also in the process of getting more funds for the Mill Creek work, Wagoner noted this week, through a Kentucky Division of Water 319 grant, given to projects aimed at addressing nonpoint source pollution.

But the end result, those behind the project hope, could reimagine southwest Jefferson County's parks system, connecting green spaces across the region and bringing new life to an urban waterway.

"As the water quality improves, there are fishing opportunities. There are opportunities for canoeing, and that's not happening now because we don't think of this as a park resource – we don't think about it much at all, in terms of the community, because we're not really connected to it," Knox said. "This project's going to connect this resource to the community."

Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.