By By MIKE VOSS
mike@wdnweb.com
Contributing Editor
While some areas of the city stand to benefit from a $3.8 million contract for stormwater drainage improvements, the Iron Creek subdivision won’t be on the list.
At its meeting Monday, the Washington City Council authorized the city manager to sign the contract between the city and T.A. Loving Co. Two Iron Creek residents asked for drainage improvements to their subdivision be added to the contract.
That did not happen, but city officials did assure the Iron Creek residents the city would once again look at the problems in Iron Creek to see what, if anything, the city can do to help alleviate the problem.
For several years, flooding and drainage problems have plagued the Iron Creek community, which is a part of the city. Iron Creek’s flooding and drainage problems have been blamed on ill-designed drainage ditches, beaver dams and the clogged Mitchell Branch on the south side of U.S. Highway 264. City public-works crews have done some work over the years, helping alleviate the problem.
But as city officials reminded the Iron Creek residents Monday, some causes of the problem are out of the city’s jurisdiction and purview.
Iron Creek resident Charles Daniels asked the council about the status of a grant he said the city has promised to seek to help pay for a study of the drainage issue in Iron Creek. He also asked the council to add Iron Creek to the $3.8 million contract for stormwater drainage improvements elsewhere in the city.
Darwin Woolard, an Iron Creek resident and former councilman, echoed Daniels’ comments. Woolard said he recalled that during his time on the council that the city told Iron Creek residents it would seek a grant to pay for a study of the Iron Creek drainage problem.
Woolard said Iron Creek residents have been patient long enough.
“We want to see some action,” Woolard told the council.
Mayor Archie Jennings said he and the council are taking the Iron Creek residents’ concerns seriously and will continue to work with them to find a solution to their problem.
As for the $3.8 million contract, it includes “as much construction as we can get,” said Durk Tyson with Rivers &Associates, the engineering firm working with the city on the project.
The project calls for improvements in the Jack’s Creek drainage basin from a point just south of Eighth Street southward and eastward toward Park Drive and the Northwood Road area of the Smallwood subdivision, according to the agenda.
The Jack’s Creek portion of the project calls for replacing the culvert at the intersection of Seventh and Harvey streets, removing or upgrading the culvert between Seventh Street and John Small Avenue and installing a submersible pump at the Jack’s Creek stormwater pump station.
The Smallwood improvements call for replacing the pipe in the Northwood Road area near Rowan Place and Eden Drive with a larger pipe and replacing pipes under and/or along Reed Drive, Alderson Road and Lawson Road. The ditch east of South Reed Drive to Keysville Road will be improved.
The Airport Canal drainage area will realize additional storage capacity in swales in and around Heritage Park, silt removed from sections of the canal bottom and culverts under the Wilco-Hess station and Grimes farm path replaced.
For additional coverage of the council’s meeting, see future editions of the Washington Daily News.