In mid-January, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) will mail letters to property owners along Ohio’s Lake Erie coast whose properties are located within a preliminarily-identified Coastal Erosion Area (CEA).
The letters will initiate a 120-day comment period for coastal erosion maps that have been updated since the previous release in 2010.
Under Ohio’s Coastal Management law, ODNR is required to measure coastal erosion rates along the state’s Lake Erie shore. A CEA is a designated area of land predicted to erode within a 30-year period if erosion control measures are not completed.
Based on the updated maps, the length of shoreline designated within a CEA will decrease from 12 percent in the 2010 mapping to approximately 6 percent in the 2018 mapping.
The objective of the CEA program is to identify the hazards and mitigate the economic losses of erosion-related damage, ODNR said.
ODNR is developing fact sheets and a website dedicated to the 2018 CEA program. Additionally, public hearings to present the preliminary 2018 CEA maps will be held at various locations in Ohio’s eight coastal counties.