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By GLEN WERLING
Progress in Ossian can be seen occurring soon in the Melching Addition!
Three years in the making, the Ossian Stormwater Board this year finally brought the plan to eliminate flooding in the addition to fruition.
Melching was just one of nine projects originally identified as priority by the board following a survey of Ossian residents. The board gave it highest priority because it was one location in town where stormwater was actually backing up into houses during heavy rains.
The project underway will replace smaller existing storm sewers with larger storm sewers. Behind the properties on Metts St., the plans are to replace a 15-inch tile with a 24-inch tile. On Melching St., an 8-inch tile will be replaced with graduating tile sizes starting with 12-inch, then 18-inch and concluding with 24-inch. Both the Metts and the Melching tiles will tie in with an existing 30-inch tile on Davis Rd.
At least three laterals with inlets will be run from the new Melching St. tile behind the properties on Melching St.
The cost of the two projects was originally estimated at $428,000 by engineers from Bonar & Associates of Fort Wayne, the engineering firm contracted by the board to design stormwater projects.
However, in April the board received some excellent news when it bid the project and nearly all of the bids came under budget. The construction contract was awarded to All Star Construction for $319,316 at a May 12 meeting of the Ossian Town Council.
Through the late fall, winter and early spring months, town manager Luann Martin and stormwater board vice president Rose Ann Barrick worked on acquiring right-of-way for the portion of the projects between Metts St. and Jefferson St.
In order to create an area wide enough for All Star’s equipment to travel between the properties on the street, the board acquired an additional 15-foot easement in addition to an already existing 10-foot utility easement. The easement acquisition did not require property owners to give up or sell their land—just maintain unimpeded access should the tile ever need to be worked on.
To keep that access path open, a number of trees had to be cut down, some sheds had to be demolished or moved, swingsets and children’s play equipment had to be moved and backyard fences had to be relocated.
Barrick lobbied hard to keep the town from using a bond issue to pay for the project, stating that the town’s poorest taxpayers could not afford such an issue.
She won that fight through investigation and hard work when this past February, the town instead chose to fund the project with a low interest loan through Ossian State Bank. The bank beat out two other banks—National City and First Bank of Berne—with an interest bid of 4.64 percent for a loan of up to 10 years for an amount not to exceed $420,000.
Instead of additional tax funds or fees levied against the citizens of Ossian, the board opted to pay the loan back using the existing stormwater fee, However there was a caveat included when the Ossian Town Council approved of that decision by the stormwater board in March—the fees may have to be hiked in the future to accommodate the loan payback if the board hopes to pursue any future drainage projects.
And the board does have plans to address the problem areas identified by the survey but is trying to come up with creative and less expensive ways to address those problems.
One of the problem areas identified following the original survey and subsequent preliminary engineering plan by Bonar is on Siebold St. The engineers had recommended a buried pipe plan that would have pushed into the six figures. However, the board noted that a previous town project which installed terraces on the adjacent Ralph Wilson farm brought much of the flooding under control.
Darrel Brown of the Wells County Soil and Water Conservation Service recommended at a stormwater board meeting last June that the remaining runoff problems from the Wilson farm could be addressed through the planting of a strip of clover. Brown suggested an area 100 feet wide by 200 feet long. It wouldn’t stop the water, but it would slow it down and would help keep the field debris away from the houses on Siebold St. He suggested that the board work out a monetary compensation with the tenant who farms the Wilson property to keep about a half acre in a cover crop.
The board was also forced to address an issue that was not identified in the original survey.
In April, while cleaning an old tile out on LaFever St., utility crews discovered that the tile had deteriorated significantly and was in need of replacing immediately because it was creating sinkholes along the street.
The stormwater board and the town council have approved of a bid of $95,167.85 from Land Construction in LaOtto to replace the line with Dual-Wall polyethylene pipe
Town manager, Luann Martin, decided to split the cost of funding the project into two department budgets. Stormwater will pick up $77,641.70 and the street department will pick up $17,526.15 out of its budget for pavement repairs
About $55,000 of the project is expected to be paid for with funds saved from the Melching Addition project, noted Martin. The remainder will have to be paid for out of the stormwater budget.
There could be some additional costs involved in the project if there are sump/downspout connections that will have to be reattached. The amount of that cost is dependent upon the number of taps that will have to be restored, but Land plans to charge $547 per tap.
The 1,000-foot long stormwater line will extend west from Norwalt St. to just east of the Eight Mile Creek.
glenw@news-banner.com