Need for project led to wash out of ‘St Mary’s Road’
The Greene County board of supervisors, serving as trustees of Drainage District 108, held a public hearing and then approved a $67,000 repair project at the Feb. 29 meeting.
DD 108 is located in Franklin Township southeast of Cooper. The project covers 2,000 acres and one mile of an open ditch waterway. The drainage district was organized in 1915 and the waterway was installed in 1959. It has never been cleaned out and sections now are impaired by silt.
It was changes in the waterway that led to a major wash out on 330th St between P Ave and County Road P-30 over Labor Day weekend last year. “A heck of a lot of water goes through there,” county engineer Wade Weiss said at the public hearing.
Thirteen persons attended the public hearing. Most were seeking more information about the cost and the scope of planning. The only objection to the project was noted via email sent by Judy Johnson. She objected to the cost allocation.
No tax dollars are spent on drainage districts although in most cases, the supervisors serve as trustees. The cost of repair is divided among landowners based on a benefit classification done when the district was established. Landowners further from the outlet pay more because water travels further from their property. There was brief discussion of the classification process; a reclassification (and possibly a reallocation of costs) would cost between $12,000 and $15,000.
Landowners had petitioned last fall to have the clean out done. By code, trustees are obliged to do repairs and landowners cannot block the process. (Landowners can block an improvement but not a repair.)
The cost estimate is below the threshold requiring a bid letting. MHF Engineering, which prepared the report presented at the public hearing, will request bids to be submitted by March 18.
The contract will allow 15 working days for completion with a deadline of Oct. 15.
In other drainage action, the supervisors met via conference call with the Carroll County supervisors as trustees of DD150-86, a district that overlaps the county line. They opened sealed bids and approved the low bid of $42,152.50 from LeRoy and Sons of for Arcadia repair to the district. The bid estimate for the project was $40,000. The project will be completed before Oct. 15.
