Drainage Issue In Winona Has Town Officials Puzzled
Drainage Issue In Winona Has Town Officials Puzzled
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Drainage Issue In Winona Has Town Officials PuzzledWINONA LAKE – A storm drain issue in Lexington Manor subdivision in Winona Lake has not only the homeowners stumped, but town officials as well.
Utilities and Street Superintendent Tom Miller told the town council Tuesday, “There’s a storm drain issue out there that has me scratching my head, frankly. First of all, we don’t know if it’s the town’s or private. Secondly, it makes no rhyme or reason where a lot of this goes.”
He said they went out there, cleared the lines, put some dye in and cleaned out some lines to figure out where all the water was going.
“The dye never surfaced, which really made us kind of wonder where this thing was going. And then it did surface – completely some place where we never dreamed it was going to be, in someone else’s yard. But where we put it was someone else’s storm drain. So that makes me wonder who it belongs to, where it all goes, who did what, where and when. Thus, the need for our design standards. It’s very important we have those because this wouldn’t happen if we had proper prints and specifications for this type of thing,” Miller said.
Roger Gelbaugh, a homeowner in the subdivision, said he had 5 inches of water in his basement during the last storm.
“This is my second go-around with my insurance company, and they’re not too happy,” he said. “We tried several years ago to get this taken care of. I came down and talked to (clerk-treasurer) Mr. (Kent) Adams two weeks ago, he gave me Tom’s number. I called Tom. The next day, Tom sent Rich and two other guys out I didn’t know. They were scratching their heads.”
Those workers found a drainage pipe in the creek, which they assumed was where it drained. The next day, they pumped 500 gallons of water into the drain with red dye, thinking it went to the creek, Gelbaugh said. No water or dye showed up there.
“Now nobody knows where this one drain goes,” he said.
Gelbaugh said another neighbor, who wasn’t able to make Tuesday’s meeting, went out after the last storm to buy a huge pump to get the water out of their yards. Gelbaugh said he had 5 inches of rain in his basement from backup.
“The reason I had 5 inches of water in my basement – Nick (Hauck) had more than I did, Nick lives behind me – Nick’s wife took the cap off for the drain for the water to go down. Where’d the water go? In my basement and in Nick’s. There’s definitely a drainage problem somewhere. So when they pumped the water with the dye in, Barnabus, the neighbor who isn’t here who bought the pump, went out and started pumping it down. He pulls the grate off and guess what color the water is? Solid red. From across the street, it came back to us,” Gelbaugh said.
He said with every subdivision he’s ever seen, once a town accepts that subdivision, everything in it belongs to the town. “And we think this is the town’s problem,” he stated. “We really would like to get this resolved.”
Miller said he and the town engineer will look into it and report back to the council.
Town Coordinator Craig Allebach said it might be beneficial for the town to meet with the homeowners.
“Quite frankly, we’ve had problems ever since that subdivision was built and we alleviated a little of that when we put 250 East in at the entrance there, but it’s been off and on a problem. It seems like recently something’s going on out there,” Allebach said.
He said he didn’t know if it was the town’s problem or not but that’s why everyone needed to put their heads together to figure out the problem.
“Just because we accept the subdivision doesn’t mean we accept private property drainage, and I don’t know where that drainage is going to, but we’re going to try and figure it and then we’ll try and figure out a solution,” Allebach said.
Gelbaugh responded that the drainage was in the right of way. Allebach said it was, but he didn’t think the water was getting there. He said they needed to figure out what was going on.
Hauck said the first time it happened, there were 13 homes that flooded.
David Lewis, representing the homeowners association, said he would be the property owners’ representative to the council to coordinate meetings.
