VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

OCTOBER 17, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 17^th day of October, 2006 at 3:52 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Bill Nix presiding.

President Nix: Good afternoon. I would like to call to order the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board, Tuesday, October 17, 2006 at 3:52.

President Nix: I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Commissioner Musgrave: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Nix: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Nix: Mr. Jeffers, good afternoon.

Bill Jeffers: Good afternoon, President Nix. We have three drainage plans. One of them is Chadwick Estates. It’s a new subdivision on Peck Road, north of Old State Road, behind Scott School. The plan that you’re folding out shows both Chadwick Estates and Chadwick Place. I’ve highlighted the two. One is a drainage plan, one is a grading plan. The drainage plan comports with the county drainage code. It’s a final plan. The County Surveyor recommends approval of, first, the final drainage plan for Chadwick Place.

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to adopt the recommendation of the Surveyor.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Nix: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: Second, the County Surveyor recommends the approval of the final drainage plan for Chadwick Estates.

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to adopt the recommendation of the Surveyor.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Nix: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: There are two Mylars, one for Chadwick Place and one for Chadwick Estates, with a signature block for the County Drainage Board to sign their approval to be recorded in Andy Easley’s office. Those go back to him.

Bill Jeffers: The next drainage plan is for Shoe Carnival distribution center. It’s a very large distribution center on State Road 57 in Vanderburgh Industrial Park. The plan comes from American Consulting Engineers in Indianapolis. I do not have a Mylar transmitted from them yet. However, I do have extensive plans. I’ve only included the overall site grading plan for you to look at, but the, I’ve reviewed the narrative and all the details of the final drainage plan for Shoe Carnival distribution center on State Road 57. It comports with the Vanderburgh County drainage code, and the County Surveyor’s recommendation is to approve the final plan. While you’re looking, this is a large warehouse, there are areas of the parking lot which are below flood grade, and you’ll see on that plan that I’ve required them to paint the pavement warning anyone who parks there that it’s below base flood elevation. There’s some other little details like that. It’s quite an extensive plan. The roll that it came out of was huge.

Commissioner Shetler: How many, how many feet below that flood plan is it? Or inches, or whatever?

Bill Jeffers: Anything greater than six inches below base flood elevation has to have a warning, you know, warning signs and pavement markings to indicate that. There were some areas where they’re going to park semi trailers that were up to three feet below.

Commissioner Shetler: Really? Okay.

Bill Jeffers: I just felt it was appropriate to paint the pavement, so that everyone that parks there knows. It would only occur during a 100 year flood.

Commissioner Shetler: Right.

Bill Jeffers: And it would only occur, hopefully, when people had plenty of warning that there was going to be a hard rain, you know.

Commissioner Musgrave: How often do we have 100 year floods now?

Bill Jeffers: Oh, I don’t know, every ten years or so. Ten, eleven years.

Commissioner Nix: We shouldn’t have one for three hundred years right now.

Bill Jeffers: We shouldn’t, but we had two or three this year, didn’t we?

Commissioner Nix: Yes, we did.

Bill Jeffers: I’m not laughing because it’s funny, it’s just kind of comical that we call them 100....they actually, it’s, when you say 100 year flood, that means that the anticipated, that there’s a one percent chance of that intensity of rainfall happening in any given calendar year. There’s a one percent chance. Now, we’ve hit that chance two or three times this year.

Commissioner Shetler: If it’s one percent, you could have three point, that would be right.

Commissioner Musgrave: So, it’s your recommendation to approve this?

Bill Jeffers: Yes, Ma’am.

Commissioner Musgrave: And it passes all the state requirements and all that good stuff?

Bill Jeffers: I’m not sure about state requirements. It passes all the local requirements.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: They have been through the wringer with US Army Corp of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources–

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: –at the state level. I do....several of the things that we wanted on the drainage plan could not be done, because the Corp of Engineers or the Department of Natural Resources would not allow it, due to wetlands and other jurisdictional conflicts. That’s why it’s taken so long actually.

Commissioner Musgrave: So, it’s your recommendation to adopt these plans?

Bill Jeffers: As is, yes, Ma’am.

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to approve the recommendation of the Surveyor.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Nix: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: That’s all the business the County Surveyor has for the Drainage Board today.

President Nix: Is there any other business?

President Nix: Any public comment? Anyone that wishes to address the Drainage Board?

Victor Dorsey: Hello. My name is Victor Dorsey.

President Nix: Okay, and what’s your address, sir?

Victor Dorsey: My address is 2509 Saratoga Drive. Just a comment on the last item, about being, what was it three feet below flood stage? I worked at the Post Office, I worked at the plant out there by the airport, and this plant, you get hard rain, the dock area back there floods, bad. I don’t know how this happened, but, I believe, before this plant here gets approved, that someone should check to make sure that this isn’t going to happen four or five times a year or more. Then you’ve got these semis coming in, he said something about three, what three feet? I believe, have you ever been in three foot of water? That is up there pretty good height. I mean, it’s just a warning that it probably will happen, because it did at the Post Office, at the plant out there. I’ve been retired for five years and it never was fixed when I was still, when I was there, and I really doubt if it’s fixed now. So, I would say if you approve that and it’s three feet below, then you’re going to have problems then.

President Nix: Mr. Jeffers, do you know what the elevation is of the area that he’s speaking of?

Bill Jeffers: The base flood elevation for this proposed building is 395.0 above sea level. The lowest place in the parking lot is 392.3, which is actually two and a half feet below flood. The majority of the parking lot is 395, which is base flood elevation, up to 398, or three feet above flood. This corner down here, which is all semi parking stalls, approximately 20 semi parking stalls out of over 200, are below flood elevation. They were unable to raise those due to constraints from the Army Corp of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources, because as they get closer and closer to the north end of that parking lot, they begin infringing what is considered wetlands. There’s some ponds out there and so forth.

President Nix: Which would lend to the reason why you said that that was an area that you really couldn’t get like you wanted it.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, sir.

President Nix: Because of the wetlands.

Bill Jeffers: The highway there, Highway 57, is about 398.9.

President Nix: So, it’s three feet, ten inches–

Bill Jeffers: So, the highway is above, it’s just this northern most portion of the parking area, as I pointed out, that’s below flood.

President Nix: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: And we’ve asked them to paint that with high color, high contrast color pavement, and put up signs warning that that area does flood.

President Nix: I’m just curious, the elevation, and I’m sure you wouldn’t know this right away, but the elevation at the Postal Service, do you happen to know–

Bill Jeffers: I’m not sure on that. We did not have the opportunity to review those plans. Those were produced by a federal agency, and when we asked to review them, we were denied the opportunity to review those plans. I believe a lot of that water that’s at that Postal Service, which did cause the employees a considerable amount of consternation over the years, and there have been some improvements made I understand, but, again, I don’t have access to those plans. A lot of that water was simply trapped in there, and had no way to get out when it....the way I understand it, there were some waterways that when they were completely filled with water during an extremely heavy rainfall, they topped out, came down into the parking lot, and people had to actually float to and from their vehicles on inner tubes. I mean, there’s a lot of stories going around about that facility, being brand new and that happening.

Victor Dorsey: I never saw an inner tube. As far as that goes–

President Nix: Could you please step up to the microphone?

Victor Dorsey: I’m sorry.

President Nix: That’s okay.

Victor Dorsey: As far as that goes, it wasn’t the employee’s parking lot so much that was the problem. It was the semi trucks which you were talking about to have painted, which I don’t know what paint’s going to do. That is the one, back there by that, where they unload the trucks is the one that flooded so bad. I mean, the employee’s parking lot was bad enough, but it was nothing like it was back there. You’re talking about three feet back there. The parking lot, it was maybe six inches or something like that. Because it was at a different area. The reason I’m concerned about that is because I had to work back there for about three years. So, I know what it was like. It was bad. It was just, you know, give you an idea. I don’t know if you’ve approved it yet or not, but it gives you something, you know, something to think about.

President Nix: Okay.

Victor Dorsey: I don’t know why it’s allowed. You know, you say you’re three feet below flood, but yet it’s going to be approved? Why? It seems to me like they should get that up three feet or do whatever to get it above the flood stage.

President Nix: I think Mr. Jeffers touched on that a minute ago, part of the problem is that the wetlands area, you can’t bring up. They won’t allow you to do it. So, there’s a certain number of parking spots required, and as far as painting, the painting would actually go in the spaces, they wouldn’t actually go on the trucks. It would be on the spaces, the parking lot spaces.

Bill Jeffers: That’s correct. There’s nothing in our–

Victor Dorsey: (Inaudible. Not at microphone.)

President Nix: Thank you very much.

Bill Jeffers: I do appreciate the gentleman’s comments, and I do understand his concern. There’s nothing in our drainage code that prevents a parking lot from being located below flood. The Building Commission’s rules are that a domicile or a building be constructed two feet above flood elevation. This building is constructed two feet above flood elevation, but there is nothing in our ordinances that prevents someone from creating a parking lot below flood. What is in our code is that if they go six inches below base flood elevation, or lower, they must erect informative signs that warn people of the condition, of the potential for flooding, and to paint the pavement in such a way, with markings, that additionally warn them that vehicles or storage units parked, trailers parked in that location are subject to flood during a 100 year event. So, the plan does comport with our code. I passed this information along to the developer who’s building this, Woodward Development is building it for Shoe Carnival, and alerted them to this. They were resistant to do the, to paint the pavement this way, but they were instructed that if they wanted the plan to carry the Surveyor’s recommendation, that they must do so. So, I’m sure that everyone is fully aware of the situation, and will comply with our code.

President Nix: Thank you, Mr. Jeffers.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, sir.

President Nix: Any other comments from the board? I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move to adjourn.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Nix: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:07 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Bill Nix                                      Cheryl Musgrave                      Tom Shetler, Jr.

Bill Jeffers                                 Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Madelyn Grayson

Victor Dorsey                            Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Bill Nix, President

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, Vice President

Tom Shetler, Jr., Member

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.