Looking for balance in drainage

It’s a matter of finding the right balance.
As Jay County Commissioners — acting as the county drainage board — continue to consolidate watersheds, they’ll need to figure out the Goldilocks problem: When is a watershed too small, when is it too big, and when is it just right?
Commissioner Jim Zimmerman, who chairs the drainage board, has noted correctly that all surface water in the county drains into three larger watersheds.
Some of it flows east and north to the Wabash River. Some of it flows south, west and north to the Salamonie River. And some of it flows south to the Mississinewa River.
And the board has noted many times in the past that some of the county’s dozens of watersheds are so small that they don’t generate enough revenue to keep them maintained properly.
If, for example, a watershed just brings in about $400 a year from ditch assessments, the board will be forced to borrow from other funds if much work at all is required.
Under limits from the state, it’s possible to borrow as much as five year’s worth of revenues. But then the fund has to be paid back.
As you would expect, the record-keeping on all of the various watersheds, their borrowing, and their ditch assessments is time-consuming and tedious.
So the board’s current strategy of consolidating small watersheds into the three largest ones makes sense in many ways.
But as commissioner Milo Miller Jr. has pointed out, it’s also possible for a watershed to get so big that there’s a disconnect between landowners paying ditch assessments and seeing actual work done that affects their property.
For instance, some farmland in Madison Township in southeastern Jay County actually drains north or east to the Wabash River miles away.
A ditch assessment paid by a farmer in Madison Township to pay for work near the Jay-Adams county line might make sense in hydrological terms. But it probably doesn’t make sense politically.
The answer, then, is a question of balance.
With each consolidation of watersheds, the drainage board should focus on those three essential questions: What’s too small? What’s too big? And what’s just right? — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]