Another Look

Portland Board of Works is meeting with a familiar business partner Thursday to discuss a familiar topic — flooding.

Butler, Fairman and Seufert is presenting a renewal of its feasibility study first commissioned by Jay County Commissioners in February 2016 that resulted in a plan to create a detention pond north of the city to collect overflowing water from Millers Branch. The presentation will be in the mayor’s office at city hall.

Boggs said the board will review Butler, Fairman and Seufert’s proposal over the next few weeks before it chooses to commission a study or enter into an agreement with the Indianapolis-based engineering firm.

The city’s flood advisory committee met with the engineering firm in June to review the studies provided to commissioners in the summers of 2016 and 2018. The 2016 study concluded that a 26-acre-wide detention pond south of county road 100 North and west of Morton Street estimated to cost $7.47 million would deter potential flooding.

However, the challenge will be creating a pond without destroying wetlands, which would require the city to develop new wetlands or pay a mitigation credit to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Portland chose to enter into a three-year planning period with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2017. The Corps concluded that the most cost-effective solution would be to create a 40-foot-wide ditch that would carry overflowing water from Millers Branch to Cartwright Ditch and eventually the Salamonie River.

Doing so would cost $7.9 million, which Boggs deemed too costly and thus terminated the agreement with the Corps in July. Following the termination, Boggs said the city would likely commission a study from Butler, Fairman and Seufert and reaffirmed that earlier this month.

Butler, Fairman and Seufert engineers told the Portland Flood Advisory Committee in June that a detention pond would deter overflowing water from Millers Branch but would not completely solve the city’s potential to flood during high water situations because the Salamonie River could still overspill beyond its banks.

Downtown Portland was underwater three times from the beginning of June to mid-July 2015 as 21.75 inches of rain fell in about 40 days, more than the city’s annual average of around 20.66 inches.

Dirt collected from the creation of a detention pond could end up saving some money for the city’s long-discussed runway extension project at Portland Municipal Airport. Butler, Fairman and Seufert engineers told commissioners in 2016 that a detention pond could create 100,000 cubic yards of excess soil while the airport project calls for around 140,000 cubic yards of dirt.

Butler, Fairman and Seufert is also overseeing the airport’s planned runway extension to 5,500 feet from the current 4,000 feet.

Boggs said flood advisory committee members will not be at Thursday’s meeting with Butler, Fairman and Seufert.