Batavia council OKs flooding, drainage fixes

A half-million dollars worth of fixes for water drainage problems were approved Tuesday night by the Batavia City Council.

On one, Batavia is spending $60,000 more than it anticipated. On the other, the bill is being picked up by the Army Corps of Engineers.

First up was dredging and new plantings for Braeburn Marsh, on the city's northwest side off Randall Road south of Fabyan Parkway.

"This project must be done. There are continuing problems with flooding in the area," said Alderman Jim Volk, chairman of the city services committee, which recommended the contract.

The marsh was constructed about 20 years ago to handle stormwater runoff. Over those years, the marsh lost a foot of storage area due to lack of maintenance. Invasive cattails impede water flow to McKee Creek, especially when trash catches on the stalks; below the water line, the stalks and other nonnative vegetation degrade and turn in to sediment. Beavers are fond of building dams in the marsh, and people toss landscaping waste in to it. In heavy rains - especially in the fall of 2007 - that led to water backing up in detention ponds, storm sewers and basements.

The solution is dredging the buildup, and burning the cattails. The burns have already been conducted.

Engineers estimated the cost of dredging at $230,000, and that's what the city budgeted. Instead, Earthwerks of Batavia, the low bidder, will do it for $293,426. The work will take place this fall, and must be completed by Nov. 1, because Batavia will borrow money for the project through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Recovery Zone program, at an estimated interest rate of 2 to 2.5 percent. That funding requires projects to be done in 2010.

Aldermen then turned their attention to Windmill Lakes detention area, for an area southwest of Randall and Main Street. But in that case, intervention from an outside agency has resulted in found money for the project - a $200,000 grant from the Army Corps of Engineers.

The detention area was originally built to handle a smaller territory than it currently does; commercial development to the north has sent greater water flow through it, leading to severe erosion and sedimentation, according to a city staff memo on the matter. The drainage path and detention pond have to be re-engineered and rebuilt, the memo says. Regardless of whether the shopping center and the church should have been maintaining the pond, the city contributed to the problem by allowing the increased development.

The Conservation Foundation found out about this drainage problem three years ago, and brokered a deal where the Corps will give $200,000 out of money it has collected in the watershed. The foundation will take over maintenance of the drainage, with the city paying the costs. The city, in turn, will get maintenance money from the shopping center and church - a minimum of $3,900 a year for the first five years from the shopping center, and $900 a year from the church for five years.

The terms of the grant require the work to be done by Dec. 31.

And the overall lesson of the night?

"These things just don't take care of themselves, we have to manage them," Volk said.