(Ed. Note: Bill Connors has posted this explanation of the video posted below: I have posted it for bette visibility.)
billconnors has left a new comment on your post "Mark Writes: Video: Rain: Problems for Westside R...": I will have to go have a look in person, but it appears from the video that the detention pond for the Abey-Koth Subdivision is doing what it is supposed to do--holding water for later, slower release, to prevent flooding downstream.
The pond you see in the video catches water from the old Abey-Koth Subdivision, not the new Westfield Meadows Subdivision. The detention pond for the new Westfield Meadow Subdivision is on the far west side of that subdivision (southwest corner), by the bend in the drainage ditch.
There also is a large, new detention pond north of Porter Road, which the city required the developers of the Westfield Meadows Subdivion to construct in order to improve the surface water situation over the situation that existed after Abey-Koth but before Westfield Meadows. Bottom line, if you think the developer and the city screwed this up, you should be talking about the developer of the Abey-Koth Subdivision and the city officials and engineer back when that subdivision was approved, not Westfield Meadows.
Bill ConnorsFormer Evansville City Administrator Posted by billconnors to Evansville Observer at 2:44 PM
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Mr.Connors I read your explanation of the water issue on the west side, and my question is Are You Kidding? I don't live on the west side, but I took a drive by after seeing Mark's Video, its very sad. These people did not spend thousands of dollars on their homes to have standing water in there back yards, so much so that I doubt they can let kids out to play in there own back yard, we also witnessed a ' lake or pond' so deep a child could drowned in it, the one ' pond' being right next to a family's yard with the swing set sitting partially in the water. This is unacceptable, the city needs to clean up the mess they helped to make.
ReplyDeleteBill,
ReplyDeleteI have to respectfully disagree with your opinion. Westfield Meadows does have a pond north of porter road at the West end of the development. However, this new detention pond and the old 6th street pond share a common avenue out of the area, the stream that runs south towards Croft Road. This stream can only handle a certain amount of water or it will flood out the bridge at Croft Road. Therefore these ponds are flow controlled by a "box culvert" at the stream so water does not release too quickly from the retention ponds and flood out the Croft Road bridge. So even though these ponds are separate, essentially the new pond has the effect of further restricting what can be let out of the 6th street pond. I believe the grading that has already occurred has contributed to the problem (low lying areas have been built up to displace more water towards the 6th street pond). Ultimately Westfield Meadows will cause problems for existing homes unless the bridge at Croft Road is replaced to allow the flow to be increased out of the retention ponds. This is just going to get worse when pavement and shingles come into play. This was not that much rain compared to the rain several years ago (that was called a "100 year rain") that left a visibility of a couple of feet and looked like "sheets of rain" coming down. I have attended many meetings in regard to this development and I have yet to hear one Engineer give a compelling argument that Westfield Meadows is going to improve the situation as they claim. I am fully confident if the Engineers were not receiving their paycheck from the developer that they would not have any issues with this.
The pond was quite full this morning and had caused an overflow/standing water in yards to the north and south of the pond. This should not happen. One of our local bloggers lives in a property that had standing water. I'd be curious to see if he thinks this is normal, so far he is silent, so perhaps I am making a big deal out of nothing. This was not an unusual spring rain and I believe the new development has further contributed to our water issues and it will only get worse when pavement and shingles are added to the equation.
There has been some talk of a class action suit against the city and people have actually contacted Lawton and Cates. I have declined to participated in this, but if I end up with a damaged basement from water pressure or my property value suffers substantial devaluation due to water issues, I will bring legal action against all involved (City of Evansville, Roger Berg and Partners, Rick Eager). There are multiple forces at work here and you can't pinpoint the blame on any one of them.
I wouldn't take it so hard Bill, you didn't have a vote on the Planning Commission that approved this.
Mark
We had less than two inches of rain and yet had water levels approaching that of four years ago when we had more than 5 inches.
ReplyDeleteThe pond at the end of Vison, which Bill assured us would never have water standing in it has never been dry and is now full to overflowing. I saw the PDB who bought that house out watching the level creep up to his foundation the other night. My kids looked at that house and I told them to run like bunnies.
The Westfield Meadows pond was full. The flat "greenspace" was full. The Abey-Koth detention pond was full to overflowing back through all six of our backyards.
The mitigation done by the City over the last two years certainly helped keep the water from risng to my deck again but the backup flowing south will only get worse. The Mountains of the Moon look of Westfield Meadows certainly slowed some of the water down to keep it from cresting the berm.
It ain't good, Bill and it ain't working like it's supposed to. Westfield Meadows has exacerbated the problem, just as we warned. To say that they are blameless here is a little disingenuous.