VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

JULY 25, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 25^th day of July, 2006 at 4:20 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with Vice President, Cheryl Musgrave presiding.

Commissioner Musgrave: I will call to order the July 25, 2006 Vanderburgh County Drainage Board meeting. Unless you are the Vice-President?

Madelyyn Grayson: You are.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay. I wonder why Mr. Jeffers is leaving?

Brenda Jeffers: He just went to dim the lights.

Madelyn Grayson: I’m going to pass around an attendance sheet, if you all would please sign in.

Commissioner Musgrave: I believe we can probably approve the minutes. Madelyn, do we have the minutes for this meeting? For the last meeting?

Madelyn Grayson: We’ve got minutes from July 11^th and July 18^th to approve.

President Musgrave: I’ll officially open the meeting of the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board for July 25, 2006. Is there a motion to approve the minutes?

Commissioner Shetler: I can, I guess, make the motion for the 18^th. I wasn’t here for the 11^th meeting.

Commissioner Musgrave: Alright, I’ll second your motion, and we will leave unapproved the meeting of the 11^th.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: As the only Commissioner here who attended the meeting, you could do that on your own.

Commissioner Musgrave: I’ve seconded your motion. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye. And I will accept the minutes of July 11^th as the only Commissioner in attendance who was also at that meeting. Mr. Jeffers, you have supplied us with drainage plans.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, this drainage plan that you’re looking at, you’re probably very familiar with, it’s Brake Supply, the project you’re working with in Vanderburgh Industrial Park to locate a large industry on lots one, two, three and four of Vanderburgh Industrial Park, where they’re combining those four lots and redrawing some easements. I’ve shaded, in yellow on the plan, the new easements that carry drainage from this point down here at the southwest corner of lot one, up through lot one to the detention basin, which is a standing lake, a pond. Then, there’s another easement that they’re dedicating around the building and into the pond, so that the old easements can be vacated. I believe your attorney is working with them on that. I have reviewed the new easement descriptions, and they’re correct, along with the easement...they’re reconfiguring this lake. Right now it’s an ugly rectangle that stays muddy all the time, and they’re refitting the outlet structure so it won’t stay so silty, and they are reconfiguring the lake so it’s more pleasant looking. The plans are all in front of you. I understand that they’re going to use concrete pipe, which should serve you well during the period of time that the County Commissioners are responsible for the pipe. It should serve you very well. It doesn’t require mandrel testing, as flexible pipe would. Otherwise, it meets all the requirements of the drainage ordinance and has the recommendation for approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: As a final plan.

Commissioner Musgrave: Do we have any questions?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: We move now to Cambridge Hills.

Bill Jeffers: The second drainage plan on your desk is for a portion of Cambridge Hills Village, or Cambridge whatever it is, but it’s called Cambridge Hills in this instance, but it’s that whole golf residential complex in the northeast part of the county, up in Scott Township. It’s still under development, the golf course is operating, but there’s still some lots, particularly in this section that are available for building homes. There’s an old farm pond that I have shaded on your map in orange, that was there from the time it was a farm, and the original developers wished to expand it and maintain it as a pond so that there would be some lake front lots. So, that was incorporated into the original drainage plan, and because the ordinance requires it, there was an easement platted that I’ve shaded in orange, around that lake, and things went forward, but over a period of time the new developers have reconfigured some lots for the current market, and there are some buyers and some property owners who find the maintenance of the lake to be rather a nuisance for such a....and it kind of conflicts with the new marketing scheme. It’s not needed for detention. This golf course has several water traps and large irrigation ponds and cosmetic ponds that all are designed to work in a series, and perform the necessary and required detention functions. So, this, what they’re petitioning now is for a modified plan to be approved so they can simply use a waterway to replace the drainage function of the lake, and to come back after approval of this modified plan with a petition to vacate the lake easement. Everything is in accordance with our code. Everything will work satisfactorily, if it’s constructed in accordance with this proposed modified plan. The County Surveyor recommends approval of the modified, final drainage plan for Cambridge Hills.

Commissioner Musgrave: Are they going to eliminate the water altogether?

Bill Jeffers: Yeah, no standing water. They are going to eliminate the pond–

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: – and just substitute a dry, grassy waterway.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: This is what the property owners and the developer have agreed they want.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Shetler: But, it still will be something that has, allows the flow of water in the event that there’s a huge downpour?

Bill Jeffers: Absolutely. Absolutely, and I have required, I think I marked on there an emergency overflow?

Commissioner Musgrave: Yes.

Bill Jeffers: So, if the pipe that drains this area, because it’s still a depressed area, if it were to, and there’s a couple of homes on there that show what the required finished floor elevation, I believe it’s five oh–

Commissioner Musgrave: Four.

Bill Jeffers: Five oh four?

Commissioner Musgrave: Yeah.

Bill Jeffers: Above sea level, and I’ve required an emergency overflow ten feet wide that will spill the water across the street, several inches below that minimum floor elevation. That by the way is a basement floor elevation. So, if say a soccer ball or some debris of some sort blocked the 18 inch pipe, it would still flow through the emergency spillway, over the back of the curb, and on down through the drainage easement to the lake that it’s headed for.

Commissioner Shetler: So, this used as a primary detention, and then if that got to a point of capacity, then it would go down further to some of the other lakes in the golf course. The only difference here is that it’s not going to be really detained, it’s just going to move on?

Bill Jeffers: It’s going to move on through. We’re knocking out the restrictive orifice, and letting it flow through at it’s 25 year rate of runoff. If that’s exceeded, it has several feet of free board before it spills out the emergency overflow without flooding anything. If in an extreme emergency, like the pipe got stopped up, it would still not flood the minimum floor elevations required by the Building Commissioner for all those lots.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: So, it will work. The same way it would have worked as a lake, but there will be no lake there for these property owners to have to maintain. They found it to be a mosquito trap and a nuisance.

Commissioner Musgrave: Is there a motion?

Commissioner Shetler: Yeah, the grass is sometimes though, I think, a little bit more difficult in an area like this, aren’t they? I’m thinking of particularly out there at Burkhardt and Lincoln and that subdivision that was built 25 years ago.

Bill Jeffers: To grow grass?

Commissioner Shetler: Where they have a similar situation, and a lot of times the good grass dies out because it get diseased when you do get some water standing for three, four or five days. Then the only thing that’s left are the weeds.

Bill Jeffers: Is the sedges.

Commissioner Shetler: Right.

Bill Jeffers: The rough, course looking sedges–

Commissioner Shetler: Yes.

Bill Jeffers: –that grow up. That happens. In this case, it was that, plus cattails, algae, the fly by Farrell geese that park there and muck up the backyards. It was just kind of a nuisance to the property owners, and they wish for all that to be moved out into the golf course farther, and not in their backyard.

Commissioner Shetler: I move for approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

Commissioner Musgrave: We have other business, to receive and pay claims for annual maintenance of drains.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, when I deliver the claims to your desk, they are all in order, they all have, or represent work that’s been completed and inspected by our inspectors, with a recommendation from the County Surveyor to pay them. I’ll be delivering you, which this has nothing to do with drainage, but, I think, Ms. Musgrave requested a layout of the properties that the state’s selling down here on Cypress Slough or something. This shows the plat layout, and then I’ll deliver the orthographics to you tomorrow, when they are printed off.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay. Thank you.

Bill Jeffers: They’re still printing right now.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay. Is there a motion to pay the claims?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Is there any public comment? Any other business? Is there a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Cheryl Musgrave                      Tom Shetler, Jr.                        Bill Jeffers

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Madelyn Grayson                     Brenda Jeffers

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, Vice President

Tom Shetler, Jr., Member

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.