Mitchell City Council is hearing suggestions to curb the risk of flooding
The city received almost eight inches of rain in late June in a two-day period, resulting in flooding in some areas of the community.
Mitchell City Council members heard from a city engineer who said flooding proved drainage infrastructure of the city is inadequate.
The main issue is the sizing of the pipes the city has to disperse water in a flood.
Ryan Murtha is a city engineer who led the study on the Sunnyside drainage basin on the southern side of town. He offered three different multi-million-dollar improvements to consider.
The first and second scenarios involve creating a detention pond to store rainwater. These plans come with a price tag just under $20 million.
The third scenario is a complete overhaul of the city’s water dispersion methods. It would cost just over $21 million.
Mike Bathke is a Mitchell City Council member. He asked Murtha if improvements needed to be made to Dry Run creek first. That’s a stream that runs through the city which often floods.
“I’m thinking, that, maybe too far ahead maybe, but we need to address Dry Run Creek first, because we are really going to increase the flow into that creek,” said Bathke.
Murtha responded to Bathke’s question.
“You look for the land that’s available, well that all happens to be at the very top end of the system. So, it was really hard to find storage space that existed anywhere than at the top end of this. Which, essentially leaves us with the option of piping it down to Dry Run. But, yes, that is something that has to be looked at,” said Murtha.
No action was taken my council members at Monday's meeting.
