Combining watersheds

Within a decade, the county could see what was nearly 100 watersheds combined down to three.
On Monday, the Jay County Drainage Board approved the first step — combining 26 small watersheds into the Salamonie River watershed. During the public hearing, Jay County Surveyor Brad Daniels and the Jay County Commissioners noted that, ideally, the county might only have three watersheds.
Since all water in the county essentially drains to three waterways — the Wabash River in the north and east, the Salamonie River in the middle of the county and the Mississinewa River to the south — the county will likely make a move toward fewer, larger watersheds reflecting those drainage patterns.
“I thought about that before I ever sat here,” said commissioner Jim Zimmerman, who farms in Jefferson Township.
“To me, it’s just logical sense,” he added.
Prior to the Salamonie combination Monday, the county had 94 watersheds. That total has now been trimmed to 68 and the Salamonie now sits with the Loblolly and Limberlost among the largest watersheds.
At Monday’s hearing, the commissioners noted that they would like to continue combining watersheds that have a positive balance into larger groupings in the future.
Daniels has pointed out several benefits of the larger watersheds, most notably that it should allow more work to be done throughout the area.
“Mainly the funds that would be available to work in all the watersheds,” Daniels highlighted as the biggest reason for combinations. “We have a larger pool of funds.”
As prices go up over time, the amount of work that could be done in a small watershed with a low balance is minimal. With a larger pool of annual assessments, however, the funds should have more money allowing for more and larger stretches of work to be completed.
Other benefits, Daniels noted, include less time spent tracking completed work and funds. Both field workers and office staff have to spend additional time tracking what was done and how much money was spent in each watershed. With only a handful of watersheds, the bureaucracy involved would be lessened.
The commissioners and Daniels have stated that they only want to consider combining watersheds with positives balances as not to “bail out” those that are in debt. Due to that fact, it may take several years before the total number of watersheds is cut down to its final levels.
The county has kept a policy of making sure that no watershed gets in debt more than five times its annual assessment, so the process could likely be completed in five years.
The county’s watershed number boomed when they were established since locals in an area could come together and petition the courts to establish a county drain in their area. Those landowners would then pay an assessment for the county to help upkeep drainage infrastructure.
In a smaller watershed, a property owner’s assessment may go toward maintenance a mile down the road, where in a larger area like the Loblolly watershed, a Penn Township owner’s assessment could be paying into the pool to fix a problem in Bearcreek Township.
Daniels said he didn’t think that by combining the watersheds that property owners would lose local control over how their assessments are spent. Watersheds operate as a system, so a problem downstream could cause issues for all the owners upstream.
He also noted that most work is initiated by public request, since the surveyor’s department doesn’t have the staffing or time to keep tabs on every tile and ditch in the county.
“If I had to go around and check on every tile and every open ditch, I wouldn’t get anything done,” Daniels said.
The drainage board often hears complaints from landowners that they pay their drainage fees but never see any work being done near their land, a sentiment that could be amplified with larger watersheds. Daniels, however, noted that if property owners have a drainage problem they can come in and report it. Otherwise, if no work is being done, it’s likely a sign that the infrastructure is currently well-maintained.
“If there’s work not being done, then their portion of the watershed must be in pretty good shape,” Daniels said.
Although the goal is to have a larger pool of available funds and get more work completed, Daniels doesn’t think the assessment will be need to be collected every year. When a watershed reaches a positive balance of four times its annual assessment, the collection is “shut off.”
“I think they would get in pretty good shape,” Daniels said. “They would be shut off for several years.”
He cited the Salamonie watershed, which hit the shutoff point and was not collected for several years in a row. Even when the balance got down to about half of that level, the collection was still bypassed since there wasn’t an expectation that more funds would be needed in the near future.
Although three large watersheds might be the most simplistic way to handle it, Daniels didn’t rule out keeping more than that since some of them — like the Loblolly watershed, which covers parts of Penn, Greene, Wayne and Bearcreek townships as well as most of Jackson Township — are already sizable.[[In-content Ad]]