The ditch-closing
project at the western terminus of West Porter Ave., between 23rd Street and
18th Street, is all done bar the shouting.
Folks, however,
whose front-yard ditches were piped and then filled have probably noticed
that the newly laid sod which rolled out so lush and green only a week ago
has turned, in many places, dry and brown.
There’s a twofold
reason for that, Chesterton Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told the Stormwater
Management Board at its meeting Monday night: first, almost as soon as the
sod was laid the temperatures began hitting 90 degrees; and second, the
sub-contractor whose responsibility it was to water the new sod, per a set
schedule, missed a day or two.
O’Dell’s been in
touch with the general contractor, Grimmer Construction Inc., Grimmer’s been
in touch with the sub, and indeed earlier in the day on Monday, around 12:30
p.m., a crew with a water truck was at work in the project area.
Should the sod not
come back, O’Dell said, it’ll be replaced or--sometime this fall--hydroseeded.
He did urge residents, though, to water the sod themselves to give it the
best shot possible.
The browning of the
sod hasn’t been the only problem, though. Last week a motorist left the
roadway on 23rd Street, just north of West Porter Ave., and managed to get
his vehicle sunk and stuck in a strip of the sod. And towing it out only
made the damage worse.
Street Commissioner
John Schnadenberg told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting that
he has the motorist’s insurance information and intends to go through
channels to pursue compensation.
The
ditch-closing--whose contract price is $179,286--is the final project
financed by the $800,000 stormwater bond issued in 2011. Other bond projects
included the installation of two stormwater lift stations, one in the alley
behind Val’s, the other in an alley off 11th Street and just north of West
Porter Ave.; the clearing of the detention basin just west of 23rd Street
and south of the Prairie Duneland Trail; and various repairs on the 23rd
Street stormsewer.
Storm Drain Failure
In other business,
Schnadenberg reported that one of his crews just rebuilt a pair of storm
drains on Crab Tree Lane in the Chestnut Hills subdivision, following the
drains’ failure.
“It’s an ongoing
thing with these old drains in the subdivisions,” he noted.
Easton Park
Meanwhile, MS4
Operator Jennifer Gadzala reported that ground has broken on infrastructure
for the Easton Park project, what will become, on its full build-out, the
single largest residential subdivision in Chesterton.
It’s located on the
east side of 250E at the eastern terminus of East Porter Ave. and it’s
platted for 362 homes.
It’s also, as
Gadzala remarked, an “intimidatingly large project” with a wetland on site
which must be protected from the silt and runoff generated by construction
activities. “So we’ll be keeping an eye on that.”
The installation of
Easton Park’s sanitary sewer infrastructure is set to begin this week or
next.
Gadzala, Master
Naturalist
Gadzala also
reported that she has been asked, once again, to be a class instructor at
the Indiana Master Naturalist Program to be hosted this fall by the Coffee
Creek Watershed Conservancy.
Gadzala will teach
a three-hour course in water-based education, including such topics as
watersheds, water quality, land use, and wetlands.