City will help with clean-up effort

“We’re not going to have a downtown if we don’t address (the flooding),” Portland Mayor Randy Geesaman told a roomful of local business owners and government employees during a special Board of Works meeting Monday morning.
During the meeting, board members Jerry Leonhard, Bill Gibson and Geesaman voted to bend the city’s usual rules to accommodate local businesses and residents dealing with flood issues.
“Since we did declare a state of emergency” the city needs to hold a meeting and discuss the damage caused by the flood, Geesaman said.
The board’s vote will allow the city to skip over various formalities — such as requesting bids for removal of the flood debris. It will also allow them to use city equipment to help out local business owners whose stores have suffered flood damage. Doing this, according to Geesaman, will help the city recover from the flood more quickly.
“What we’ve done will hopefully speed up the process,” he said.
“We’ve got to help all we can help,” Leonhard added.
Geesaman told board members he planned on getting in contact with state employees Monday to deal with removing contaminated sandbags from the city. He said he would make the call, and the state would have prisoners out Wednesday picking up the sandbags.
Those who want to get rid of sandbags can leave them in the road or alley where their trash pickup usually occurs.
Geesaman said the city already has about 37 pallets of new sandbags ready.
There will also be a city trash truck available on Thursday to take away flood-related debris and trash from downtown business. Portland streets superintendent Ryan Myers asked that businesses have these items ready for pickup by Thursday morning.
He also said the city is planning a flood-debris pick up week July 27 through 30.
“On your trash day, just put all your flood-damaged stuff out there,” he said. Electronics, however, will not be collected.
The board also discussed numerous flooding issues affecting the downtown area.
“Some of you aren’t going to be able to survive if there aren’t improvements,” Geesaman told the local business owners in attendance. “The Miller Branch has caused a tremendous amount of problems.”
Millers Branch is a creek that runs from northeast of Portland through the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Association grounds and feeds into the city’s sewer system just north of Votaw Street.
Geesaman talked about possible solutions for the flooding, including building retention ponds around the city, which he said has been done in Berne. Sandy Bubp, who owns multiple buildings downtown, told board members that Fort Recovery also has retention ponds, which helped stave off some of the flooding there.
Another suggestion Geesaman offered was to have county and city employees work to widen areas of the Salamonie River where the banks have collapsed. Geesaman said he would personally ask the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers — which maintains the nation’s waterways — if the city can do the work.
“We’ve talked to (the Army Corp of Engineers),” Geesaman said. “They need to get their rear ends up here.”
Brian Aker of Aker-Taylor Plumbing asked if, in the event the work does happen, the excavated material would be hauled away. He said it appeared that dirt had just been piled on the banks in previous years and that dirt eventually collapsed back into the river.
Geesaman assured him the dirt would not remain on the banks.
Tim Miller, who owns TJ’s Bike Shop, questioned whether or not the city should help alleviate flooding problems at Jay County Fairgrounds, saying that any water that is being added to the Salamonie River in that area would only increase the chances of downtown Portland flooding.
Miller also asked if the sewer drain near the intersection of Meridian and High streets could be redirected.
“It was kind of back feeding up through there,” he said.
“I don’t know how we’re going to eliminate that if the water doesn’t stay below 72 inches (in the Salamonie),” Gibson answered.
The city’s combined sewer overflow drains sit about 72 inches above the bed of the Salamonie, and when the sewer water reaches the drains, it empties into the river. When the river 2
water rises above 72 inches, the sewer water has no where else to go, causing it to back up through the sewers.
Geesaman and the other board members said they will keep those ideas in mind as they work with the county to fix the local flooding issues.
In other business, the board approved a request from Bob Breslford, superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant for $48,000 to pay for the removal of about 300,000 gallons of sludge — at 16 cents per gallon — at the plant.
Brelsford said wastewater employees usually dry out the wet sludge, but that everything is too wet for that process to happen now.