WAUPUN — The Waupun Board of Public Works held their monthly meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss options for managing and preventing flooding incidents in the community.
Director of Public Works Jeff Daane gave a presentation on several areas of concern in the community that have had flooding issues in the last several years, outlining the issues and potential solutions. The purpose of this presentation was to bring members of the Board up to speed on the issue and to conduct a new study on the best way to resolve several of these areas.
The presentation had sections on recent floodzones including Gateway Dr between Fond du Lac St and Homan Chevrolet, The Rock Golf Club property, Edgewood Dr around Beske St and Harmsen Ave, and the W Lincoln St area by Hazel St and Patte Dr.
Also discussed, but not in the presentation, was the area located along N Harris Ave which in June’s flooding incident completely covered the Stobb Plumbing property and much of the nearby streets, filling it with sediment from the creek.
“We’re not the only community dealing with this,” Public Works Director Jeff Daane said at the meeting. “A lot of communities are, if not all communities.”
The primary culprit for the increased flooding in several of these locations were the installation of field tile to the nearby farmfields. Field tile is placed several feet below the surface and forces rainwater water to run off the fields faster into drainage areas, which keeps the soil at a healthy level of dryness for more of the year. But without somewhere to go, the water ends up flooding the surrounding areas.
Both the region along Edgewood Dr and the area by Hazel St are flooded by water that now runs off these fields. For Hazel St, the farm fields to the south, and for Edgewood Dr, the fields to the north. This impacts the nearby homes and forces closure of the impacted roads, preventing cars from accessing or leaving the areas.
Other locations are simply flooded by the amount of water and inability to store it, which is exacerbated by its proximity to the Rock River.
Flooding on Gateway Dr does not cause much property damage, but it does close a major road for the east side business district, forcing drivers on the north side of town to take a detour to Main St to access the business district. It also may block access to Homan Chevrolet on both sides. and blocks the road for days even in minor flooding events. The City has looked into ways to reduce this, but options are limited due to the nature of the location.
According to the presentation, a flood reduction study performed in 2015 which focused on the Gateway Dr area found that “even a very large floodwater storage area (100 acres, 6’ deep, with an estimated cost of nearly $5 million) would reduce flow rates to a degree only sufficient enough to lower flood elevations at Gateway Drive by approximately 1.5 inches.”
At its maximum extent the floodwaters can reach from the W&D Navis facility at the intersection of Gateway and Fond du Lac all the way to the other end of Homan Chevrolet, along Highway 151.
Similarly, The Rock Golf Club has the Rock River flowing through the majority of the property, but since this region has historically been a marshland it is to be expected.
Daane also discussed how Waupun has two sewer systems, one for stormwater and one for wastewater. The stormwater sewers are directed back into the river, while wastewater is brought to the Waupun Wastewater Treament Facility on the northeast side of town. In the presentation were proposals for an increased stormwater sewer system in the W Lincoln St area, which would connect to a proposed retention pond.
Seeing all the flooding in recent years, some residents have expressed questions about what the City has been doing to manage the issue.
“The people should know that the City is proactive about this,” Mayor of Waupun Rohn Bishop said at the meeting. “When that June flooding happened, Jeff called me and we opened the dam before the storm. I had to call Homan’s to say they might want to start moving cars, because in an hour or so they’d be flooded. But after the whole dam valve breaking thing happened someone asked me why we didn’t open the dam before it rained, but we did. The water table was already high, and we knew heavy rain was coming, but no one expected that much rain in that little time.”
Mayor Bishop also emphasized that the City is aware of these issues, but the amount of money that goes into these projects is exorbitant, and the land ideal for building the retention ponds is very expensive to purchase for non-taxpaying use—no money will be generated from homeowners or businesses that use the property.
The Board concluded that they will have to build more, and deeper, water stormwater ponds in these areas and other lots for new development. They also discussed the construction of swales, but these cannot obstruct the flow of water, only divert it.
One location that they recently put a stormwater swale in for this purpose was at the end of Rosewood Dr, using low land that the City purchased from Robert Oosterhouse last year. The construction of this pond prevented flooding in that neighborhood during the June flooding, which in previous years was severe.
The Board voted to conduct new stormwater studies for no more than $11,500 for the Edgewood Dr study and $13,250 for the Hazel-Pattee-W Lincoln area study. The studies would determine the best course of action, costs for new infrastructure, and potential alternatives.
The idea of increasing the stormwater fee to meet increased costs was also floated around, but no action was taken.
At the City Council meeting later that night, Jeff Daane also gave an update on the Harris Mill Pond dam. While ordering the parts they discovered that the price of the parts is almost the same as a completely new gate valve, but less than $5,000. Installation would cost $15,000, plus another $3,000 to $4,000 charge for contracting the crane necessary to place the valve.
The DPW is working with the DNR about getting permits for the placement of the new valve, which was about three to six weeks out from the time of the meeting. Daane also said that they were looking into a new pump for the bypass pipe.
