Unearthing streams, restoring native environment at Shawnee Lookout [Video]

CINCINNATI (WXIX) – Shawnee Lookout is an area that has served multiple purposes over the years. Great Parks, with the help of The Nature Conservancy in Ohio, recently started restoring the area’s native environment to protect water quality locally and downstream.

The area was once inhabited by several groups of Indigenous people before eventually becoming a golf course. The first stage in the restoration project is to daylight the streams that had been buried underground when the land became a golf course.

“Daylighting is where we are going to take the water that’s currently funneled through underground drainage to bring it back to the surface so that it is more accessible to the wildlife,” says Jessica Spencer, the director of natural resources for Great Parks. “And it’s better for water quality.”

Shawnee Lookout is in Southwest Ohio, near where the Great Miami River drains into the Ohio River. Experts with …