Call from Corps is a positive step

A single phone call can spark a lot of hope.
A week ago, Jay County Commissioner Faron Parr received a call from a Louisville-based representative of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
His message was pretty simple: Let’s get your group together and talk.
There were no promises, but there were some bits of encouragement that the Corps wants to play a more active role in flood control when it comes to the Salamonie River.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Corps played a major role, dredging and straightening the course of the Salamonie after a series of devastating floods.
For a number of reasons, any Corps involvement this time around is likely to be dramatically different.
The first reason is environmental. The work done by the Corps back in the day was heavy-handed by any measure. It certainly wouldn’t pass muster today. And some would argue that rather than alleviating flooding, it may have made matters worse.
The second reason is fiscal. Available federal funds for flood control projects aren’t what they used to be. The notion of Uncle Sam descending with buckets of money is simply delusional.
But there is a role for the Corps to play, and it’s worth taking advantage of.
The Corps can provide planning dollars and expertise, and the Corps can make sure local officials don’t go marching off in the wrong direction. These people have dealt with flood control before.
There is no shortage of potential solutions:
•An engineering study paid for by the City of Portland suggests that the best course of action is re-routing Millers Branch from a spot north of Jay County Fairgrounds east, then south to the Salamonie. The engineers say the impact on river levels would be minimal, but city officials are understandably nervous about anything that might bring the river up, even a fraction of an inch.
•County commissioners have hired another engineering firm to study solutions that might slow stormwater drainage from the north, perhaps through a series of detention ponds.
•The city has been pitching a project that would eliminate a stormwater bottleneck between downtown and the river.
•And then there are all of the other options, everything from flap gates to pumps to dikes, that have been weighed in the past several months.
What the Corps ought to be able to do is sort all that out, maybe suggesting this course of action or warning against another.
That may not be much, but it’s enough to spark some hope.
Corps officials will be meeting with their city and county counterparts sometime soon. Keep your fingers crossed. — J.R.