County won't pay for tile (2/28/05)

The owner of farm ground near Jay County High School and the person who farms that land are looking for some help for what they say is too much water being dumped onto the property.

But that help isn’t likely to include any money from county drainage maintenance funds.

Jay County Commissioners, meeting this morning as the county drainage board, told rural Ridgeville resident Ken Schweterman, who farms the land, and property owner Linda Clemons that any new tile would have to be paid for by affected landowners.

Clemons owns a field on the south side of county road 75 South, just west of Sheffer Acres West. Water from the west side of the high school is funneled into a waterway and into a culvert which takes the water under county road 75 South.

Schweterman said the large volume of water has cut into the field so much that it is impossible to move equipment back and forth across the cut.

Schweterman said this morning that the problem has gotten much worse in the last seven to 10 years, and that the large majority of water is coming from the grounds of the high school.

Commissioner Milo Miller Jr. said this morning he had asked Ron Krieg, director of facilities for Jay School Corporation, to attend this morning’s meeting.

A message left for Krieg at 11 a.m. was not returned by press time.

Miller also said this morning that much of the water coming onto Clemons’ land is coming out of a pond west of the soccer field at the high school. That pond is full, Miller said, and the overflow dumps into a grassy waterway that heads straight south to county road 75 South.

Jay County surveyor Brad Daniels said today that the school corporation did not request or receive approval for drainage plans when a new greenhouse was constructed last year. The county’s drainage ordinance mandates that new construction not cause any additional water to drain across property lines.

Clemons could pay to install a larger tile on her land, or could petition the commissioners for a new construction project. Using that method, landowners in the watershed who benefited from the tile would be assessed a share of its costs.

Also involved in this morning’s discussion was Bettie Jacobs from the Jay County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Also this morning, the commissioners gave final approval to drainage plan for the XPlex Extreme Sports Competition Park.

The main components in the plan are a new two-acre detention pond at the southwest corner of the park, and a dramatic enlargement of a detention area just east of Qualtech Tool & Engineering.

Owner Glynn Barber said recently the park, which will offer moto-cross racing, paintball and other activities, will be open May 1.

Also this morning, Commissioner Faron Parr, Gary Theurer and Miller:

•Heard Miller request that Daniels check a sinkhole in the backyard of a home on East Seventh Street in Portland. A county-regulated tile runs through the back yard of Doug Greenway, who lives east of Boundary Pike. Daniels said the tile is six to seven feet deep at that point.

•Gave Daniels permission to request bids for a new bulldozer, but said they may decide to keep using the county’s 1979 John Deere bulldozer, instead. New 15-ton bulldozers are expected to cost as much as $150,000.[[In-content Ad]]