Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Clean water message now in South Shore train cars

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By KEVIN NEVERS

The clean-water message has reached the South Shore commuter rail line.

At the Chesterton Stormwater Management Board’s meeting Monday night, MS4 Operator Jennifer Gadzala reported that the Northwest Indiana Partnership for Clean Water has placed large public-service posters on South Shore cars with such tag lines as “Use Water Wisely, It Doesn’t Grow on Trees” (translation: don’t waste it); “Use Water Where It Lands, Why Let It Run Away?” (use rain barrels); and “Use the Can, Not the Land, On the Ground, In the Water” (clean up your dog’s waste).

Those posters will be displayed on train cars through May.

The Partnership is comprised of those MS4 communities in the region--including the Town of Chesterton--which contract with the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission to provide educational outreach services and materials.

MS4--or Municipal Separate Stormwater System program--is a federally mandated initiative administered here by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. That mandate requires the regulation and monitoring of every aspect of stormwater in a community, from illicit discharges to work site runoff, from fertilizers to dog waste.

Bond Project Update

In other business, Town Engineer Mark O’Dell reported that the next two bond projects--funded by an $880,000 stormwater bond issued late in 2011--are on hold until the weather breaks.

Ground should break before the end of the month on a stormwater lift station designed to drain a flood-prone alley in the area of 11th Street and West Porter Ave. This lift station will be the sister of an earlier one installed last year, at a cost of $147,565, in the alley behind Val’s at Broadway and 11th Street.

Like the Val’s lift station, the one at 11th Street and West Porter Ave. will pump runoff to a stormwater line on Lincoln Ave.

A second project is also on hold until spring: a remedy for a long-standing pooling problem in the 1000 block of Park Ave. There are no ditches in that neighborhood and folks have been complaining about standing water after rain for years. This project will be largely done in-house.

O’Dell told the board that utilities have been located in the work site and the drawings are being finalized. Work should commence in April.

February in Review

In February the Stormwater Utility ran a surplus of $25, 411 and in the year-to-date is running a surplus of $25,211.

 

 

Posted 3/19/2014

 
 

 

 

 

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