Bellville, Lexington and Butler are no strangers to flooding. The villages, as well as other areas, are considering banding together to find a relief from flood waters.
The Bellville Village Council passed a resolution Tuesday evening to petition to form a Clear Fork subdistrict of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD). The rule requiring three readings was suspended and the resolution passed unanimously.
Bellville Mayor Darrell Banks said that Lexington, Butler, and possibly Ontario as well as some townships will pass resolutions to support the Clear Fork Watershed Subdistrict.
Applications to form a subdistrict must be received by April, noted Banks, although a decision will not be made until June.
“Our application will be stronger if other public entities, such as the villages of Butler, Lexington, and Ontario and townships support it,” noted Banks. “We have to pass ours before they can support it.”
Bellville Law Director Jeff Mussman noted in preliminary discussion at the previous meeting, “What the conservation district recommended for the subdistrict definition was to include as much as possible of the area that is the Clear Fork watershed area. Pretty much all the land in Richland County where if a drop of rain falls it makes its way to the Clear Fork is what we are going to propose. That would be the biggest geographical area for a subdistrict that you can define.”
“One of the biggest advantages of having it cover the larger area is that the potential project costs would be spread out among everyone who benefits from having their water go somewhere that it doesn’t cause damage,” added Mussman. “That’s where we have the likely support, thankfully, of folks who maybe aren’t suffering directly from water flow problems but who are aware and mindful that it’s their water that potentially causes the problems. I think we have a great group of people in the county who are very civic-minded about this whole thing.”
Any public body can petition to the MWCD Conservancy Court to create a subdistrict, Mussman added, and that MWCD will conduct a cost analysis.
“This gives the engineers a chance to look at things at their expense,” noted Banks, “Until they can have a cost basis analysis that says it will cost more to keep repairing things year after year than it does to do whatever the engineers suggest. Until that happens, no money comes from this district. Once that happens there’s an assessment program to find out how we are going to fund this. There are several different ways of funding it. But it won’t cost anything to find out what they think we should do.”
“Once a project is determined to be cost effective and it’s approved through the subdistrict, at that point they do a pair of assessments,” said Mussman. “One is the capital assessment; the other is the maintenance assessment. Both of those are fairly long term; capital assessment is similar to a 30 year mortgage.”
Banks said, “I’m glad we’ve taken this next step to petition the watershed for a subdistrict because it’s the best way to come up with solutions. We’ll have an opportunity to look at the cost of flooding versus the cost of preventive items. It’s going to give us an idea of where we need to go from here.”
Banks noted that a Clear Fork Subdistrict Flood Plain Commission will be formed and volunteers may apply by contacting him at mayor@bellvilleohio.net or 419-886-2245 Ext. 5.
Other items discussed at the Feb. 18 Village Council meeting included the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) Bridge Inspection Program, which is available to provide bridge inspection at no cost to villages, counties and townships. An ordinance authorizing participation was passed unanimously.
The newly rezoned B-3 area of Ohio 97 is soon to be home to Amish Wares, formerly of Ontario.
The council entered into Executive Session to discuss a potential contract, the negotiations of which are ongoing. Action taken upon return to regular session was the passing of a resolution to authorize the purchase of certain land located on Route 13, adjacent to Palm Park, owned by Charles and Delinda Spoon for the purpose of park or cemetery development.
“Pretty much all the land in Richland County where if a drop of rain falls it makes its way to the Clear Fork is what we are going to propose. That would be the biggest geographical area for a subdistrict that you can define,” explained Law Director Jeff Mussman.
