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player ready...Two Valparaiso neighborhoods should get flood relief with the first storm sewer project planned for 2017.
The area around Burlington Beach Road and Brentwood Drive will receive a new storm sewer, although the city utilities staff has not set a date for the work to begin.
City Deputy Engineer Adam McAlpine said it will be done this year, though, and the city utilities board approved a $5,800 study for it on Jan. 10.
The project should solve the immediate flooding problem of the water that collects around the areas of Bicentennial Park and where Burlington Beach and Brentwood intersect, McAlpine said.
The stormwater sewer improvements should also relieve flooding to the south, downstream from some watersheds in Green Acres subdivision, he said.
The sewer pipe to be laid will collect more water than the current pipe and move it to the ditch east of Victoria Drive, effectively directing more water into the natural flow of stormwater as it moves toward Washington Township.
The board approved the low bid of McMahon Engineers and Architects of Valparaiso of $5,800 to do surveying and drafting of the planned sewer, including eight soil borings to test the kind of ground it will go in.
McAlpine said this project is third on the city’s list of flooding projects to tackle, but it’s financially reachable.
The top two are a collapsed stormwater conduit at Village Station where the Chicago Dash bus stops and stabilization of the quickly eroding banks along Beauty Creek in the southwest section of the city.
The Village Station project, which is west of Franklin House Pub at Campbell Street and Indiana Avenue, is a line more than 100 years old that collapsed in 2010 and caused a sinkhole and would cost an estimated $2.5 million to fully repair.
The city is working on multiple projects to help with that the Beauty Creek erosion.
McAlpine expects to address financing the flooding problems at the Jan. 24 utility board meeting.
James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.