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Big Darby Creek Watershed Ohio Homepage Darby Homepage Darby History Darby Ecosystems Darby Community Contact Us Ways of Giving |
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Restoration
 © The Nature Conservancy |
The Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy has embarked upon a major initiative in the headwaters of Big Darby Creek to preserve native plant and animal habitat and assist in the alleviation of downstream flooding and pollution, and resulting impacts. The long-range goal of this effort is to provide improved water quality to the entire Darby Creek system, which contains an unprecedented number of rare and endangered freshwater mussels and fishes.
This initiative, referred to as the “Freshwater Initiative,” is a nationwide effort by the Conservancy to develop strategies to improve and protect the water quality in freshwater systems across the country. Since the United States ranks first in the world in species diversity for several groups of aquatic organisms, namely freshwater mussels and crayfish, this ambitious effort is vitally important to the preservation of a number of imperiled aquatic species.
Learn more about Freshwater Biodiversity
To date, the Conservancy has acquired approximately 500 acres protecting nearly two miles of Big Darby Creek frontage and associated tributaries, natural and degraded wetland systems, flood plain forest and upland woods, and as a bonus, a 60- acre remnant oak savanna community, a globally endangered community type. Water pollution in the headwater reaches of the Darby has been identified as a major threat to the entire watershed. The Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, in cooperation with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, will work towards the restoration of former wetland habitat in and along the stream to naturally filtrate out harmful silt and pollutants and improve water quality throughout the entire aquatic system.
