Council Authorizes $5 million for Sewer Project

(posted 6.12.09)

The Speedway Town Council passed a resolution to authorize bonding up to $5 million for the Gerrard-Allison Storm Water relief project. The June 8th action was part of the process required to apply for a $1 million grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

Only two residents from the affected Gerrard-Allison area attended the June 2 public hearing. The Storm Water Management Board has conducted numerous public hearings concerning the issue. The public hearing served more as a formality in order for the town to apply for the Disaster Recovery Two grant money.

Town Manager Barbara Lawrence told the public that the town is committed to the project regardless if it receives the grant. Some factors have changed since the January 4 public hearing that sought a different OCRA grant.

The income survey is being revised and Lawrence told the council she had hoped it would have been completed by the June 8 meeting. She referred to the income survey as one of the little "sticking points" that led to the rejection of the last grant, when the income survey did not match the area of benefit.

As of June 10th, residents were still receiving telephone solicitations about the survey. Some residents would not divulge their financial information over the phone because they were unaware that it was a town survey. In the 2006 survey, the street department hung surveys on doors to gather information.

The town also replaced grant writers for this application. Banning Engineering's Linda Fulford is writing the grant instead of Dan Lake with Kieser Consultants. Fulford said she has had experience with writing OCRA grants.

Fulford said the grant will allow the town to encompass all of its chronic flooding problems and not be limited to areas affected by the 2008 floods. The grant must be submitted by June 12.

Bob Hendrickson of American Structurepoint expected to have the final design done by early August. "We are attempting to eliminate a particular size storm event," he said, referring to the 10 year, 1 hour storm event. He said that amount equals two inches of rain falling in one hour.

Lawrence also noted that it was a storm and sanitary sewer line separation project as well. Crawfordsville Road serves as the dividing line for the different action plans.

Storm and sanitary lines will be separated east of Lynhurst Drive, but the storm water north of Crawfordsville Road will be discharged into Dry Run Ditch from 20th Street's pipe. The plan calls for a 700,000 gallon underground storage tank, under the IMS parking lot north of the American Legion, to make sure the creek has the capacity to convey the water during storm events. The plan for south of Crawfordsville Road calls for storm and sanitary separation, but the pipes will be combined again at 16th Street, feeding into Main Street's 72-inch line.

Speedway Redevelopment Commission Executive Director Scott Harris told the council that as of now, the redevelopment plan calls for separating the Main Street pipe to capture only the proposed Main Street development, not the excess from the adjacent neighborhoods. He said American Structurepoint and Commonwealth Engineers will have to share information.