Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Not since 1980 has the Kosciusko County Drainage Board increased the maintenance assessment for the Cauffman Ditch.
Thursday, the board approved increasing those rates. And though the board had four letters of remonstration on file, the few people actually at the meeting were supportive of the rate increase.
The Cauffman Drain is in Clay, Lake and Seward townships. It covers a watershed area of 7,000 acres. The total length of the regulated open ditch is 60,223 feet and the total length of the regulated tile drain is 62,725 feet. The annual maintenance assessment was established in 1972. The current annual maintenance assessment totals $4,700.
The current rate of assessment ranges from 14 cents per acre to 85 cents per acre and there is a $5 minimum assessment. With the approved rate increase, the rate of assessment will be $1.55 per acre with streets and highways paying $3.10 per acre. The minimum assessment will increase to $20. The total of the new annual maintenance will be $18,000.
Charlie Decker, property owner, said, "I think it probably should be a little higher than it is."
John Lynch asked where did all the debt for the ditch come from over the years. County surveyor Dick Kemper replied the assessment rate has been at the same level for the past 22 years. The county has been putting "band-aids" on the ditch as needed, but "the tile drains are just eating us alive doing those repairs." Tile drains, he said, are expensive.
In other business, the drainage board:
• Approved Lois and Duane Harman's variance request to construct a new barn 50 feet from the center of the tile on the Nickler Arm of the Dausman ditch and a new filter bed 55 feet from the center of the tile. Ordinances normally require 75 feet. The property is in Jefferson and Scott townships, north of CR 825N and west of CR 500W.
"I don't see a problem with that," Kemper told the board and recommended the board approve the variance.
• Approved a reconstruction project for a portion of the Milton Dorsey Ditch. The estimated cost to replace and reroute the portion is $10,400 to $13,000, on the high side, Kemper reported.
Kemper asked the board if they wanted to make a cost-share arrangement with the landowners or reconstruction and the board unanimously agreed it should be a reconstruction project.
The portion is in Harrison Township, west of Palestine.
Members of the drainage board are chairwoman Avis Gunter, Donald Goon, Dorris Harrold, Maurice McDaniel and Eldon Watkins. They meet at 9:30 a.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month in the county courthouse, Warsaw.
