The Brown County Commissioners have asked the county’s redevelopment commission to pledge money to help pay for a new stormwater system in Helmsburg.
In January, the commissioners unanimously approved entering into an agreement with Kenna Consulting and Management Group Inc. for services related to securing a grant from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to address the stormwater issue.
They also unanimously approved an agreement with Lochmueller Group for $8,000 so that they can perform a preliminary engineering report (PER) on the Helmsburg stormwater system, which is a requirement for the grant.
There are areas of failure in parts of the stormwater system that was put in more than 10 years ago, said county commissioner Diana Biddle. A planned second phase of the project was never completed. The Helmsburg Community Development Corporation has been working to get the project restarted and moved foward.
The overall cost, including grant administration fees and design fees, is $923,014. The OCRA grant would cover $600,000 of that. This leaves the county with finding $323,014 to make up the required match.
For the OCRA grant, a funding source must be identified for the match. Biddle attended the February redevelopment commission meeting to pitch the project and get the RDC’s vote to obligate their investment money, or the money the county received from the sale of the old For Bare Feet sock factory in Helmsburg, “with the understanding that I would go out and seek some other types of funding,” she said.
Biddle said she was looking into working with the Indiana Finance Authority, or the state revolving loan fund, to get $250,000. “I think I could get it down to where we would only be looking at about $100,000 of ‘where (are we) going to get it from,’” she said.
“Because redevelopment has allowed us to pledge their money for the purposes of the grant, once we get the award, then we can identify other sources. We’ll be able to get through the actual budget process probably for next year and see if we can’t identify additional funding, and there might be additional funding through Rural Development.”
At the March 4 meeting commissioners meeting, Kyle Myers with Lochmueller Group presented three alternatives to fix the stormwater system. His firm recommended using corrugated, high-density polyaciline pipe (HDPE pipe) to replace the existing system.
The stormwater system to be replaced will get new pipes, structures, cut spaces along curbs and manholes where needed. “There’s a lot of issues with the existing ditches and driveway culverts along the highway, so we’re doing a lot of ditch improvements virtually from the very western part of the community all the way out to Helmsburg School Road,” Myers said.
“There are a few culverts that are crossing under the highway that are in bad shape and need to be replaced. There are a few still in decent shape, so we may not have to touch them in this project.”
One of the box culverts to be replaced is at the intersection of First Street and State Road 45.
“A couple years back there was a failure in that box culvert and only part of it was replaced by INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation),” Myers said.
“(They replaced it with a) smaller diameter pipe and now that is basically collecting all of the debris in there, and now the water is being forced to collect in the ditches then over the tops of the highway and then runs right into some of the property owner houses at that intersection.”
Myers and Biddle said they would reach out to INDOT to see if they would be willing to give money to the project to help fix the box culvert on State Road 45 that was not completely replaced.
Myers said the goal is to also look at trench drains along the driveways in that area.
“In the event there’s a significant rain and the ditches can’t keep up, or that culvert we put in can’t keep up, we’ll have a trench drain along the edge of the road to catch any of the residual rainfall so it doesn’t get into homes or into their yards,” he said.
Myers said at that intersection, the pavement is deteriorating because water in running across the road with nowhere else to go when it rains. “There’s potential you’re going to start getting some pretty big potholes there and the pavement washing away,” he said.
The life expectancy of the new HDPE pipe is between 30 and 40 years, Myers said.
Biddle said the intention is to not even have to touch the sock factory money if the county can get $250,000 from the state revolving loan fund. “I don’t want to use their money for a storm sewer. I want them to be able to focus that funding on attracting affordable housing, attracting builders, things that will make an actual long term positive impact in the area,” she said.
There is currently $396,408 left in the sock factory money line. There was about $400,000 in there initially.
“The reason we continue to obligate $30,000 a year for administrative fund (to the RDC) is so they don’t chew away at that bucket of money. We tapped into it one time,” she said.
The Helmsburg Community Development Corporation is working to get letters of support from the community for the grant and completed storwmater surveys from residents that they handed out earlier this year.
The commissioners plan to have a public hearing on this project on Tuesday, March 24 at 6 p.m. at the Brown County Community Church in Helmsburg to get feedback from the community.
