Bourbon Studies Drainage Woes

BOURBON - State Senator Kent Adams, District 22 Rep. William Ruppel, Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) District Commissioner Phillip Schermerhorn and LaPorte District INDOT director William Proud met with Bourbon town officials and consulting engineer Terry Baugher recently to discuss the ongoing problems with drainage along the surfaces of Main Street (Ind. 331) and Center Street through town.

Bourbon Town Council president Bill Keyser said many of the surface storm drain outlets on Ind. 331 have sunk as much as 20 inches into the road and several repair attempts by state workers "have not been too successful." He said many problems are created for property owners by high water resulting from even a moderate rainfall because the storm drainage system along both streets is totally inadequate and in dire need of reconstruction. "It's like trying to put water from a 2-inch hose into a 1-inch hose."

Clerk Jacqualine Murphy told of a letter from the president of the local bank telling of constant water problems in the basement of his building which seriously jeopardized many thousands of dollars of computer equipment every time it rained.

State highway officials appeared before the town council this spring saying they planned to resurface Ind. 331 through town and repair the sagging storm drain openings. Town officials were appreciative of the offer but thought the underground drains should be repaired and enlarged before any paving was done. The work was postponed, according to Proud, because funding was not available.

Keyser said the town submitted an application for funding through an FA3 grant with the Department of Commerce. It was learned that grant had a $500,000 limit and the estimated cost of both street projects was $3 million. The grant request was denied. Baugher added he was told by state officials that "the town may or may not be invited to resubmit another FA3 application."

Schermerhorn said he didn't understand why the town could not submit another application and said he had no knowledge of any town being "invited" to submit applications. He agreed the town had a serious problem but said there were no quick answers. "I want to be honest - I don't have good news for you," he said. "Your story is the same as many around the state. We have more infrastructure needs than money to pay for."

He said perhaps such a reconstruction project could be done in four or five years and that INDOT would probably bear most of the expense with the town paying a percentage of the cost.

Baugher said drainage from the two main streets empties into two natural outlets, both ditches - one to the south and one to the east. Storm drainage from the entire town empties into these outlets by means of tiles ranging from 6 to 12 inches in diameter, sizes now inadequate to handle the drainage. Drains for the two streets are interconnected, so to reconstruct only those along one of the streets would not solve the problem.

Schermerhorn advised that if town officials were successful in obtaining funding for the reconstruction of Center Street surface and drains, "to come and make a case to the state to do Ind. 331. One thing that will get INDOT's attention is if the town can come up with more than a 20 percent match."

Keyser reminded him that "it puts a real burden on a small town because we can't put all our funds into one project when there are many others."

Ruppel said the town was recently allotted $250,000 from the Build Indiana Fund and asked if that amount could become part of seed money to obtain further grants. Schermerhorn said it was possible: "It's things like that they pay attention to."

Schermerhorn promised to investigate questions raised, and Ruppel and Adams agreed to write to the Build Indiana Fund commission and request the release of those funds to the town.