Sweet Home Public Works Director is developing a proposal for funding and completion of storm water drainage improvements on Long Street in the area of 45th Avenue where residents reported flooding and erosion problems.
Residents, Jim Fay and Betty Crosbie and others, attended a Public Works Committee meeting in October to explain the problem. With the complexity of the issue, primarily funding, the committee sent the issue to the city council for its consideration.
Residents first contacted the city about problems with erosion in June. The erosion, one said, has caused soil erosion potentially undermining a new chain-link fence. The problem, residents say, is caused by inadequate drainage to pick up the water that comes off of the properties that lay to the south and east of 45th Avenue and Long Street.
Larger culverts, 18 inches, in the area drain into much smaller culverts, nine inches, downstream.
“The fixes, whatever they may be, will be some sort of program,” Adams told the council during its regular meeting on Nov. 14. “No matter how we slice it, there is going to be a cost involved in whatever we decide to do.”
In addition, Adams said, there will be additional operation and maintenance costs associated as well as increasing levels of federal and state regulations on storm water discharge into rivers, potentially requiring the treatment of storm water in the future.
This particular area is listed as the third priority in Sweet Home’s Master Storm Water Drainage Plan, Adams said. The plan calls for enlargement of culverts, channels and ditches from 47th Avenue along Long Street to Highway 20 and also 43rd Avenue to Long Street. This includes enlargement of the culverts under Long Street at 45th Avenue, the channel along the north side of Long Street from 47th Avenue to 43rd Avenue and the ditch along the east side of 45th Avenue where it touches Long Street.
The price tag for the project is estimated at $38,000 for that portion of the area, Adams said. Funds have been set aside in the budget for the day when the city will be able to proactively begin capital improvements in the drainage system.
At this time, possible funding sources include a local improvement district (LID) where the city completes the work and property owners pay the city back over time. Other solutions include a rate charge, similar to sewer and water or bonded indebtedness.
A resident of the area said that it did not make sense to continue building in the area when the drainage cannot handle what is there now and that the city should restrict issuing building permits in the area until the drainage problems are solved.
As developments go in, builders are required to improve their drainage to the city’s master plan, City Manager Craig Martin said. Builders have often complained and been frustrated about being required to put large culverts in above smaller culverts, but the city is unable to force those downstream to enlarge the system, so the drainage system is enlarged as developments are created.
Councilman Robert G. Danielson pointed to money saved from the current fiscal year’s budget already as a potential source of funding for the improvements. The city budgeted $70,000 for a use “vactor” truck, used in sewer maintenance, and ended up spending only $60,000. He also pointed to a vacancy among Public Works superintendents for additional savings in the budget. He said the city should spend that money on this problem.
City staff cannot arbitrarily decide to spend that money, Martin said. That direction needs to come from the city council or the budget committee.
The council voted 6-1 to direct Adams to prepare a plan to improve the drainage in that area and to identify possible funding. Bean, who thought the Public Works Committee should further review the issue, voted no to the motion.
Present at the meeting were Councilmen Bob McIntyre, Craig Fentiman, Jim Gourley, Mayor Tim McQueary, Dick Hill, Bean and Danielson.