I. Proposed ordinance authorizing a contract without bid to purchase a 6 inch self-priming diesel pump set totaling $34,184.

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1 CHAIRMAN EDWARDS called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. All five members were present. STREETS & UTILITIES COMMITTEE I. Proposed ordinance authorizing a contract without bid to purchase a 6 inch self-priming diesel pump set totaling $34,184. EDWARDS: We would like to change one thing in this ordinance and take one thing out. This contract should be put out for competitive bidding and the other is to remove the emergency clause. If we are spending this kind of money, we cannot afford to sit down and negotiate one contractor. Our best support for the dollars is to put it out for bids, take the bids in and see where we end up. KRASIENKO: Is this equipment being bought through State purchasing? TIMKO: Yes. It s usually pricing on this equipment so it doesn t get any lower than what they offering. KRASIENKO: So it s similar to what we do with police cars. We buy through State purchasing, they ve already went through the bidding process so it saves us the hassle and expense of having to do the bid. Do they offer any other type of pump through State purchasing? Is there a specific reason why you chose this one? TIMKO: We chose the Godwin pumps because it is the pump of choice during an emergency. We have used them on several other emergencies. One of the Godwin pumps we ran for six weeks straight with down time just for an oil change. The main reason this pump is being purchased is for emergency bypass needs from manhole to manhole and for inner plant bypasses; it gives us another level of safety factor as far as flooding and things of that nature. The pumps have been proven. They also have some features where they run dry indefinitely. They are self-priming. We have tested them under severe conditions. They are one of the preferred pumps on the market. Godwin offers a 24-hour emergency service with it. There are other 6-inch pumps you can buy from discount places but you do not get the service and parts availability 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. We have learned from some of the other problems that we had, that emergency service has come in handy quite a bit. The pump performance and the company behind it as far as the emergency services goes, this is an emergency pump and this is the clear winner as far as the pump that you would purchase. KRASIENKO: If it s gone through State purchasing then it s already gone through the competitive bidding process. It s no different than when we do $200,000 worth of police cars annually. I don t know why we would go through the additional expense of advertising and drawing up bid specifications, mailing them out and going through the entire process when we really do not need to. EDWARDS: What other company ran a pump that you tried that is compatible to this kind of pump? There are a lot of them out there. TIMKO: There are quite a few of them out there. I do not recall the entire list of pumps but we did go through some of the discounters that we have purchased other pumps from. We looked at their specs and very early on made the decision that they were not up to snuff. We also have in our stock now sump pumps that are not Godwin pumps that we had trouble with. We tried Godwin 1

2 pumps under the most severe conditions. They are an industry leader and are proven. We have had other experiences (not the best of experiences) with lesser pumps that were less expensive and we decided that Godwin is the way we would like to go. EDWARDS: How old are the pumps that you are talking about? TIMKO: The pumps that we are looking at vary in range from about years. They are very similar pumps. You don t buy pumps like this very often. They last you years if they are well maintained. I do think that the last batch of pumps that was brought back in the 80s was brought for a very similar reason. SNODGRASS: I think Mr. Timko you touched on my first question. I wondered what kind of pumps we were currently using. TIMKO: I know there are two different types out there but I can t remember both of their names off of the top of my head. We have three 4-inch pumps and two 6-inch pumps currently. I reviewed them. I visited them at the garage shop because I asked that the pumps be completely redone and refurbished. I was told don t do them. At that time, I know we went over the names, I can get them for you, I just can t recall them. SNODGRASS: It sounds like we are using a different brand or a different type of pump currently. Are we going to be trained on how to maintain this or is their training on how to fix this? TIMKO: Yes, usually when a representative sells a piece of material like this they come out to do the division that will be using it and they give a training seminar that runs through the entire pump. Now, we have rented these pumps on three emergency situations so the guys on the sewer brake fixes trained on these pumps for six weeks straight. So, they are familiar with the Godwin pump set up. I would probably imagine that most of them don t need to be trained because they were also there when these pumps were being serviced. There is training that would go along when you purchase equipment of this nature. SNODGRASS: So, that is all part of the price? TIMKO: Yes. SNODGRASS: What type of warranty are we getting on this? TIMKO: I do have the Godwin pump representative here and maybe he can answer that. I know on the spec sheets that I have, it does not mention the actual warranty. I can get you that information. EDWARDS: Is this one of the pumps that you used in the Oak Point situation. TIMKO: Yes. EDWARDS: You did have one pump that failed out there right? 2

3 TIMKO: It never actually failed. It would have run indefinitely, especially out in the cold weather. One of them had a radiator leak. The radiator was hit and cracked. That pump continued to run, never stopped and it would have continued to run if they wouldn t have taken it off line to fix it. It was a very small leak and we were out there when it was like ten degrees so really, there was no chance of the pump overheating. That was a result of an actual hit to the radiator. EDWARDS: I know a couple of the guys said they had a problem with a pump out there. We are talking about mechanical equipment which would and could fail. When we look at spending this type of money..we need to put the specs out there and let the best guy come in. It is not in the document that this is through State purchasing so we are just assuming that you are going to sit down with this company to cut a deal for this price of $34,184 for this pump. When you come to Council with those kinds of numbers, I think we need to look at the money we are spending in this City when we are in the red. Naturally, we will question this type of buy and these kinds of things put before us. TIMKO: I do think we have experience with these pumps. We have dealt with this company before. I have called them at 1:00 a.m. and they have responded. I doubt that we would get many other companies that would respond like that. There is an entire parts inventory sitting in Cleveland if this pump goes down. We can have a part within an hour and a half day or night, 365 days a year. We have experience with these running six weeks straight. I would ask that the consideration of not going to bid and to consider the emergency clause because this pump we are purchasing in case of an emergency, in case of a bypass event from manhole to manhole. Everything included in the package will allow us to set up to go from manhole to manhole to bypass. I think that is very important. I would hesitate against the delay. I know it s a tremendous amount of money but I feel confident that it is money well spent. SILECKY: This is a brand new pump correct? It is not one that we have used in the past. TIMKO: It is brand new. SILECKY: What motor is operating this pump? What diesel motor and whose company is it? TIMKO: The pumps come with two types of engines. I believe the one we are buying is going to be a John Deere. They either come with a John Deere 4045D or a Caterpillar 3054NA engine. SILECKY: You are saying there is nobody locally and the closest would be out of Cleveland? TIMKO: They are not that complex that we can t service them ourselves. The hub where the Godwin company is, is right out of Cleveland. SILECKY: Godwin itself is for the parts of the pump but Caterpillar or John Deere we could purchase parts locally for the diesel motor. It s just for the Godwin pump itself that has the specialty parts would be out of Cleveland. TIMKO: I m not even saying they re specialty; my preference would be to use Godwin parts on a Godwin pump. They could be interchangeable with John Deere and Caterpillar parts. I would imagine that they are. I don t think there is anything unique about some of these parts. 3

4 EDWARDS: We do not need to look at changing our parts until the end of the warranty because if we change our parts then that would nullify the warranty. TIMKO: That is why I said I would rather replace a Godwin part with a Godwin part. EDWARDS: We don t know what the warranty is. TIMKO: I do apologize for that. We will be more than happy to get that warranty information for you. TOBIAS: Paula Tobias, 1503 E. Erie. I wonder how often this pump is anticipated on being used. TIMKO: It varies. We have used them three times this year (since December). The tanks themselves will use a 6-inch pump for that as well. It could be used to take down the tanks in the plants. TOBIAS: When we rented and ran it for six weeks, what was the cost of that? I am looking at the difference of renting vs. owning, if this is an emergency are you anticipating another collapse soon? Why not invest the $34,000 to prevent another collapse instead of a bandaid? TIMKO: We are not anticipating another collapse. If were anticipating a collapse, we would be out there fixing it right now. The original pump rental cost.at some points we would rent a 10-inch and a 12-inch (which are considerably larger) for the collapse and that bill came in somewhere around $40,000 for six weeks renting. It was a fairly hefty bill. I think it s a wise investment. We need these pumps in various places around the City within the utilities operations. These are common pieces of equipment and to have them on board ready to go with the accompanying hoses will make disastrous responses even better. In the sewer and water system, problems are going to happen eventually. Moved by Mr. Krasienko, supported by Mr. Silecky, move the legislation to Council and request information about warranty and for passage as presented. Motion carried II. Proposed ordinance authorizing the Mayor and/or Safety Service Director to enter into a contract for professional services for the improvement of the Martin Run Watershed and declaring an emergency. IAFELICE: Richard Iafelice, Vice President CT Consultants. This evening we will do a brief presentation relative to a study that we were contracted by the City to conduct. It was to mitigate and relieve flooding along Tower Boulevard and to improve the carrying capacity of the Martin s Run channel. We would like to run through a technical presentation. Bob Greytek will review our findings, our recommendations from our analysis. In addition, you also have for consideration modifications to your storm water utility ordinance. I will make some brief comments and we will then open up for questions. 4

5 GREYTEK: I will present a brief PowerPoint presentation. I just wanted to go through some of the issues that are currently involved with the Martin s Run Watershed, specifically in the area between Ashland Avenue and West 35 th Street. Right now, there are nine separate culverts that were constructed in the early 1990s that were installed with the bottom of the culverts lower than the channel bottom, either upstream or downstream of the culverts. The effect of doing that is that while you have the 6x12 box culvert, the actual area that you have to pass a storm through the culvert is an area above the para hydraulic flow wide(?). Most of the culverts in this area range from two feet to a foot and a half. (PERTAINING TO SLIDE) This area right here is the existing bottom of Martin s Run. The bottom of the culvert is this area. The area between this white line and the top of the culvert is really the effective area of the culvert so instead of being able to utilize the full 6x12 culvert what you are actually utilizing is a 2x12 culvert. If you look at that same culvert in that same section, that is looking through the culvert upstream to downstream. You had that same water surface that you seen in the previous slide. This area becomes the effective area for your storm flow to pass flow. In the case of Tower Boulevard, you also have storm sewers that are connecting into this same box culvert and those storm sewers (because of the water elevation) even if there is no rain are about half full of water. When you have a storm, the effective area that you have to carry the storm in these storm sewers is this area above the water surface that is in that storm sewer even when there is no rain storm. If you take a look at the culvert at West 37 th Street, this is a photograph taken on May 22; you can see in the field that apparent opening. This is your water surface (referring to photograph), this is the box culvert, this is twelve feet wide, and there is about three feet visible above the water. There is another three or four feet below the water. This area here is the area that you have available during a storm to carry the storm flow. If you take a look at that same box culvert and you look upstream, this is the channel approaching the box culvert and as you can see it s relatively shallow. You can see some stones and rocks sticking up. The back flow is only a few inches deep. When it gets to this box culvert, you can see the pool area that develops upstream the box culvert. This area here is four to five feet deep. Once again, you only have a couple of feet available to actually carry the storm. Starting at Ashland Avenue, you can see we are going from upstream to downstream. Every one of these culverts as you can see, there is only a foot or two available that shows up above the water for carrying capacity. This is every culvert between Ashland Avenue and West 35 th Street. This one looks like there is about 18 inches available. This is West 35 th, there is probably about two feet there. The proposal is to take that flow line from the channel and lower it. Right now, the bottom of Martin s Run is about at that elevation. The proposal is to take the bottom of the channel and move it down to here. What does that do? Instead of only having a foot or two available to carry the storm, you now have the full capacity of the culvert to carry the entire storm; you have gained capacity. The only way to get that capacity is by lowering the bottom of the channel. To clean the channel with the current invert elevation or bottom of the channel doesn t change the fact that you only have a couple feet available to you. You need to lower the bottom of the channel to allow you to get all this capacity. If you look at the section of the culvert, by lowering the channel both upstream and downstream of each of the culverts, you have dropped that water surface to the point where your storm sewers instead of being half full of water are empty when there is no storm. So, you are able to utilize the full capacity of the storm sewers but you can t do that under the current situation. This is a rather complex graph but I would like to take a second to go through it. The yellow boxes here indicate the capacity of different segments of Martin s Run. This is Martin s Run starting from I-90 and heading down stream to Lake Erie. Each of these boxes represent the different segment of Martin s Run. This box here represents the culvert under West 44 th Street. This next box represents the channel between West 44 th Street and Ashland Avenue. This box represents Ashland Avenue. The height of 5

6 the box represents its capacity. This box s capacity is about 400 cubic feet per second. This box here is roughly 1500 cubic feet per second. This line here represents the city limit (roughly Middle Ridge Road). The area between West 44 th and West 35 th Street is in this area here. The field in the background represents different storms. The blue field represents a flow rate form a two year storm. The red field represents the flow rate from a ten year storm. The green field represents the flow rate from a twenty-five year storm. As you can see, under current conditions the capacity of this culvert under Tower Boulevard is roughly 300 cubic feet per second. The flow from a two year storm is above that, roughly 400 cubic feet per second. During a two year storm, you will have backups in the area of Tower Boulevard because the capacity of the culvert is less than the flow from a two year storm. As you can see, for a ten year storm the flow is much greater than the capacity of the culvert. Obviously, a twenty-five year storm is even a higher flow of rate than the capacity. This graph represents the improvements to the channel between West 44 th and West 35 th Street. As you can see, the boxes are higher than they were in the previous. This is current conditions and this is after the channel was deepened and widened. Now you can see, this blue field (which represents a two year storm) the boxes are above that blue field which means the segment of channel in this area can now carry a two year storm without backing up. We are not quite to the point where it can carry a ten year storm but we have made some improvement in its ability to carry a storm somewhere between a two and ten year storm; the green still represents a twenty five year storm. This graph represents the channel improvements in the previous slide and then represents the construction of a detention basin somewhere in Nottingham subdivision area. The height of these boxes hasn t changed any because we haven t done any (?) improvements to the channel. The rate of flow from the two, ten and twenty-five year storm has dropped. Here is that section with just the channel improvements. Here is the section with the detention basin. Most of these culverts pass somewhere between a two and ten year storm, maybe seven or eight year storm. This is the summary of the report. The recommendations are to improve the channel between West 44 th and West 35 th and to install a detention basin in that area to reduce the flow of upstream portions of Martin s Run. IAFELICE: I just want to talk about your storm water utility. Your current legislation revenue stream that you generated was to assist the City with various drainage improvements compliance with Phase II regulations. Your current ordinance adopted in May 2001, charges a residential single family unit $1.00 a month and includes a five percent annual increase. The non-residential is charged a 2 ½ percent surcharge on their sanitary sewer bill. You initiated the ordinance obviously to start generating funds for you to tackle some of the Phase II requirements that you are mandated under the federal registry. It did a good job in generating some funds for you, however, it s rational is not really derived at direct relationship to drainage and storm water run off. We have discussed that a number of communities are undertaking a concept, which I want to review that concept with you in terms of modifying/adjusting your current ordinance. What is proposed is basically utilizing a unit building method. A residential or single family home is assigned one unit and that one unit is then used to weigh against all other properties. We did a quick analysis using the County Auditor s land use code of all non-residential properties to generate the number of building units. What this does is relate the land use of a property, rather than their sanitary sewer bill, to what they are being charged. It is a concept that is acceptable in most jurisdictions because it has a direct relationship to the land. The use of the land which is obviously what we are talking about is what storm water/run off is generated by the property; undeveloped land is given zero; a single family home is given one and everything else that is non-residential is assigned a factor against a single unit based upon the land use. The County Auditor has a number of land use codes that they use for tax purposes that 6

7 would be used for the development if Council does desire to revise your ordinance. We are recommending to the Administration that you revisit your utility ordinance. In addition, we used the basis of a revision to your ordinance to generate additional funding in order to tackle your drainage problem on the Martin s Run channel. It s not comprehensive, it s not a citywide type of program, but this does attack your most severe problem in the Martin s Run channel. By modifying and looking at the utility ordinance and increasing your utility generation of funds will allow you to undertake these improvements. What we have done in terms of an analysis is indicate that the $1.00 per month that you will charge for a resident right now will be adjusted to $2.50 per month. The actual impact will be more on the non-residential side. I would recommend to this Council that if you do wish to pursue this, it would need looking at your large industrial uses, your non-residential uses because what we have done for a number of communities, max out their rate. If you just look at a land use code, the rate they would be charged could be and most likely would be unreasonable. You don t want to severely penalize the non-residential; however, given your current ordinance your comparison between residential and non-residential is in our opinion not equitable. The residential is taking too much of the burden based upon the theory that the utility is to be generating funds based upon what comes off of the land. Nationwide, a standard average utility is around $3.50 a month on a resident, in Ohio it s about $3.00 for a month currently. The City of Barberton has found a lot of success in this where they adopted a utility that we generated. They spent two to three committee meetings looking at all the non-residential properties, factoring in and adjusting their rates so that it was equitable. Their residential rate is now $5.00; states on the west coast are at $ a month; because of the success, this type of funding goes to projects. I just wanted to cover that part of it in concept for Council regarding the storm water utility ordinance that is being proposed. I believe it would make sense to have further discussion in detail in committee towards that. EDWARDS: What about the charges for the people living outside of the City and we are taking their water? IAFELICE: Outside the City you have no jurisdiction. It s an issue that unfortunately a lot of jurisdictions face when you are the downstream entity. Drainage laws in the State of Ohio are rather complicated. Being able to develop some type of assessment for properties outside of your jurisdiction is difficult. I am not an expert in terms of that drainage law. I would probably defer to your law director on that. EDWARDS: Maybe, we need to look at bringing into the County into this as a part-funder. At this point, the City of Lorain is taking a bunt(?) all the way as far back as Ashland and Huntington. We are taking their water. It would be feasible if we just block it up and not worry about it but we can t do that. Maybe, the other solution is to have a conversation with the County and get them involved to see if they can contribute or if they can work with these entities outside of Lorain to put some money into our watershed. That has been a long talked about issue since I ve been on Council and probably even before I got here but no one has seemed to come up with a solution. Now, we have a pretty decent program on the table before us but it means the residents of the City of Lorain are going to have to be the ones that finance this whole thing. Am I right sir? IAFELICE: You are correct. The Administration did anticipate that question and did pursue the County/County Commissioner s regarding some type of assistance and at this point they have indicated to the City nothing at all. 7

8 WARGO: Is this a new study you just made? IAFELICE: Yes, it was completed last year. WARGO: How much did this study cost us? IAFELICE: $24,000 WARGO: We had a study from 1983 that no one did anything about. I was just wondering why we didn t take the study, upgrade it and we wouldn t of had to put in $24,000? IAFELICE: That is exactly what we did. We tried to use information from 25 years ago. However, the City did use a portion of those recommendations and that is what generated the replacement of all of those culverts. It s just that the project in replacing the culverts under each of those nine locations between West 35 th and West 44 th Street was incomplete. The channel wasn t addressed. That portion was recommended in a 1982 study which was the work that the City did undertake 15 years ago. WARGO: I looked in here and I didn t see anything about the mouth of the stream where we were going to go down there and widen it and clear out all the obstructions. We have to work from the lake back because the lake level determines the flow of our creek in Martin s Run. What we have to do is start at the mouth and move back. I don t know if we do it that way, the water will run off a lot quicker. If you are going to do all of your improvements up here and still be blocked up down here, you will still have problems. I m not an engineer but I think it s logical. GREYTEK: The area that we are talking about around Tower Boulevard is roughly 40 feet above the level of Lake Erie. You can clean out the mouth of Martin s Run but it will have no effect on the flooding at Tower Boulevard. The improvement to take care of the problem at Tower Boulevard needs to be done in the channel both upstream and downstream of Tower Boulevard. WARGO: I don t dispute that. We have to go down there to open up those culverts, we have to widen the creek. We still have to make sure that when we do widen this, the more water comes down through there, it has some place to go when it goes out to the lake. When you get out there and get all those sands bars and stuff holding back that water, when the wind is blowing from the north west/north east, it holds up the flow of the water going out. I think we should start down here simultaneously. I can t understand why we are down here working because when it goes into the lake those areas get real narrow which restricts the flow of the water going down. GREYTEK: I think the point is that this area is so much higher than Lake Erie and cleaning out the mouth will not have any effect on the problem up here. You have to address (this is Phase I) this area specifically in order to remedy the problem that you are having right now on Tower Boulevard. WARGO: According to that last study (that I found at the County), they said you should start at the mouth and open it up so the water can get out of there. I don t see anything in here about it that is why I asked. 8

9 GREYTEK: We had that study also. As a matter of fact, our predecessor, Frankie Thomas did the study and that was one of the recommendations. There were a number of recommendations in that study. There was no phasing identified in that study. Now the City has taken the worse section of Martin s Run and identified that as Phase I. There is nothing in this study that does not say don t ever address the mouth of the river or anything coming from the County. What the City says is let s take care of the worst part first and they have identified that as Phase 1. WARGO: In the past, we have always done things haphazardly and I just want to make sure we do this the right way so the people aren t going to be flooded up there. One other thing, if that flow is much higher south of here than it is north of here, if we clear those channels out then I don t see any need for one of these retention basins. I m having individuals complaining to me that they are going to put in a retention basin over here to bring back all this river and hold it back so it can go out gradual rather than fast. If its opened up, I don t know if we need that or not. GREYTEK: The one reason for the retention basin is because when you go and clear out the channel, it increases hydraulic capacity, you are going to send a lot more water downstream. One of the first rules of engineering is don t have the solution be worse than the problem. It s necessary to hold some of the water back up stream. Right now, that water that is ponding over on Tower Boulevard it has to be stored somewhere. It needs to be stored upstream on this section of the channel. If you just clean the channel, lower it and widen it, it could create more problems downstream and that is why you need to couple that improvement with some additional detention. WARGO: Could we use underground storage for that water with the big pipes that they use? What they do is put the big pipes in, cover it over and they won t have a hole. GREYTEK: At this point, I think you would have to pump into something like that, which would be very expensive. You are talking about a whole lot of pipes and there is not any room to do that. WARGO: Mr. Edwards brought up the fact that we are taking a lot of water out of the County so the County should be here tonight addressing this because we are taking their water. When I worked out at the County, it was addressed back 15 years ago. They were talking about maybe involving the whole County in this thing but right now, the City of Lorain is taking the brunt of everything then we are going to take the cost of everything. It s not right for us to do it by ourselves. We should have the County down here and they should be involved in this. I agree with Mr. Edwards. MAYOR: If you look at those charts that have the flows and the amount of flooding that will occur based on having the retention basin and (?) each of the storms two, ten and more year storms, I think paints a picture that if you didn t do the retention basin. As far as the County goes, we have been hitting them up for years. Mr. Arendt has talked with them; the letter is very clear, You should be advised that my responses on behalf of the entire Board of Commissioner s, we want to communicate to the City that the County will not assist with this project. However, for the next Phase they said that they would be willing to talk with us which helps. Whether it s our fault or not it s our citizens that are being impacted. Its either we do something on our own or continue to suffer the consequences. We can point to the County and say it stinks that you aren t helping us out but our people will still flood as they have been for years. So, I don t think that we could wait for 9

10 the County to come aboard because it s just not going to happen. We have a dialogue on a weekly basis with them. Ken Carney seems to be open to it but the Commissioner s are very strong in their position. They communicate openly with us, talked with us, met with us but their response is not what we want to here. SCHUSTER: The study done in 1982, recommended some improvements that were to be done back then, have any of them been implemented at all? GREYTEK: Part of the 1982 study that I know that was implemented was installing the 6x12 culverts. The nine culverts that were installed by the City were part of that recommendation. SCHUSTER: So out of the six phases that were recommended in 1982, we had one completed correct? GREYTEK: It was partially completed because the improvements were supposed to be to deepen and widen the channel at the same time. SCHUSTER: So, at this point, I think it s startling that since 1982 we have only completed one of the recommendations that were submitted 25 years ago. Here we want to come with a new idea when we haven t even come close to what they said to do 25 years ago. GREYTEK: The improvements in the channel between Ashland Avenue and West 35 th Street are not new. This is information that we pulled from the old report that we analyzed with the new culverts. The study that we did in 2006 was to acknowledge the fact that there were new culverts and some felt that installation of those culverts had remedied the situation. Part of the study was to take a look at Martin s Run again with those new culverts to see if it had made any difference. The results were that it hadn t for the very reason that I showed on the slide show. Implementing the 1982 improvements to the channel, deepening the channel, widening it, is part of this program also. As I understand, the reason why the City did not do the channel at the time was because they couldn t secure easements and did not have the funding to purchase easements to do the channel. They had a road program going on, they could do the culverts, they didn t have the money to secure the easements so that part wasn t done. SCHUSTER: Outside of the pictures that you showed us of the basins, how much of Martin s Run have you actually physically seen? GREYTEK: I ve walked the entire length of Martin s Run and so has our staff. SCHUSTER: So, have you seen the debris? GREYTEK: Yes. SCHUSTER: You ve seen the tree roots? GREYTEK: I ve seen the concrete, the rubble, the narrowing down of the channel in some places that are two or three feet. I ve seen shopping carts, washing machines, etc. in there. 10

11 SCHUSTER: That restricts water flow correct? GREYTEK: Yes, it does. SCHUSTER: I ve had too many phone calls to mention at this point where people are more than willing to give access to Martin s Run to get equipment in there and clean it out. I think that we still need to look at those options because at this point, I will not support the pond being put in the neighborhood of Queen Anne. It just doesn t seem feasible for me. BETLESKI: Why are some channels/culverts exceedingly superior to the other ones? For instance, Middle Ridge area, North Ridge Road, 38 th to 37 th? Some of them far exceed the 25 year rain fall. GREYTEK: Some of those culverts are larger; they aren t 6x12, some are bridges. None of those other culverts, other than this area that we have been talking about between Ashland Avenue and West 35 th Street have been below the channel. The channel in all of those culverts is at the same elevation as the bottom of the culvert or bridge crossing. They have got the full capacity of the culverts pass flow where these culverts don t. BETLESKI: Some of them are paved. Is that an alternative to putting in a retention pond? GREYTEK: Those are two separate issues. The bottoms of the culverts right now are paved. They are boxed culverts, four-sided concrete all the way done. BETLESKI: Over time, they have accumulated soot soil. GREYTEK: They have accumulated debris in there but because the channel is higher on both sides of the culvert even debris in there doesn t impact the capacity of the culvert. The effective capacity is from the water level as it is now to the top of the culvert which is only a couple feet. BETLESKI: I don t think the space provided in that neighborhood the original proposal was acres was necessary for a retention/detention pond for the amount of rainfall in that area. I think you would be lucky to get six acres out of there after some of the people in the neighboring properties have purchased land in the woods. It s going to take a lot more than just moving in. It is not going to do any good if its five or six acres. I think there are other spots available that we should look into. IAFELICE: Council needs to recognize two things and the importance of the channel improvements is one. As you saw in the graphical representation, you saw an improvement that will mitigate and lessen the frequency of flooding on Tower Boulevard at least by doing the channel. A basin has a significant benefit to all this properties and downstream. Should the City decide that is not the proper location..the location was looked at because it is hydraulically feasible and the City owns it. You obviously, can look at some other location. I think what we need to talk about here is the concept. The concept here is that you need this done. You are going to continue to flood. If you choose another site then you will spend more money and have to revisit how you are going to fund it. Keep in mind, that you have got to do this somewhere. If you don t do it in Nottingham Woods (which we thought was the cost effective approach) it s your property and hydraulically it works. I believe that is what the City anticipated. Obviously in engineering you can do just about 11

12 anything. In concept here, is a significant problem that will continue unless you do something to that channel. The upstream retention reduces the amount of flow not just there but the whole area all the way down to the lake. That basin is of significant benefit. The proposal here is that we are trying to do what is cost effective for you to under take and try to minimize the impact on the users. What I might encourage you to do is talk about the concept. You really need to do this. EDWARDS: I don t think there is any doubt that we need to understand that something has to be done. This has been the issue for the last 20 years. What we are trying to look at is the most feasible way. We have the right to examine what is before us and talk about it in here. I don t think anyone on Council doesn t recognize what needs to be done but is this the best way to do it? I think that is the main issue. Someone just mentioned out of your group one way to do it and then look at the other later. In looking at that area (some of the areas I walked through not all of them) it s unbelievable that it is supposed to be a stream that takes the waterway at the amount of water we have in that area. I think cleaning might be some way of eliminating the problem. KRASIENKO: Did you do any calculations with just the channel improvement? GREYTEK: The second slide you saw was just the channel improvements. KRASIENKO: So the Nottingham detention basin that is pointing in the second slide is not figured in? GREYTEK: I am talking about the second slide on the PowerPoint presentation. KRASIENKO: I m sorry we don t have that one in our booklet. We have the current conditions, channel improvements with the detention basin and channel improvements with both detention basins are the only ones we have. GREYTEK: We can get you a copy of that. The slide that is up on the screen right now is just the channel improvements and the costs for that it is $1.9 million. KRASIENKO: Just the channel is $1.9 million? GREYTEK: Yes. KRASIENKO: What is the engineering conundrum we will run into if we only do channel improvements? GREYTEK: The risk you take in just doing the channel improvements is that you will cause a downstream situation that can be worse than what it is right now. You have opened up that pathway where you have restriction right now. Anyone that walks in that section of the stream can see how narrow it gets it tends to hold the water back which is why you are getting flooding on Tower Boulevard. When you deepen that channel and open it up, all the water that couldn t get through the channel will now move down stream. Once it moves downstream there is a lot more flow downstream then there is under current conditions. 12

13 KRASIENKO: So, when we see from West 35 th to Private Drive to the paved culvert, which will still remain a very low capacity area, is where we could potentially see flooding or over flow of the banks. GREYTEK: The advantage that you have in that area is that there is really no (?) other than when you get down to Windsor Court. That area between Private Drive and Windsor Court is pretty much open. KRASIENKO: Where is Windsor Court on here? Is it Meister to Sherwood? GREYTEK: Yes. KRASIENKO: So the Sherwood to 6 th would be where Windsor Court is? GREYTEK: It would be the area between Meister to Sherwood. KRASIENKO: Which shows that it is not a good capacity but its halfway decent. Is that encompassing the whole flood plain? GREYTEK: That is strictly showing the capacity of the channel itself. It doesn t take into account the entire flood plain in that area. KRASIENKO: So where does our problem start if we just do channel improvements because that seems to be the most efficient, quickest, instant gratification improvements that we can do. We can pass the ordinance saying we can access the channel (I think that has passed legal review). We have the equipment and it can be sent out. Give me the specifics of the problem that may occur if we only do the channel. I see we have a ton of capacity in the paved channel between Private Drive and Leavitt. Can we restrict flow and use some of that capacity in the actual pave channel? GREYTEK: I am not sure that legally you can restrict flow in that section of the channel without actually going through an analysis to determine what impact that would have. I think if you improve the channel, that area downstream (primarily in Windsor Court area) we will see the most immediate impact. KRASIENKO: Which will still have an impact even in a 2-year range? GREYTEK: Correct. KRASIENKO: Can you run modeling as to the severity? It looks like Leavitt to Meister is actually worse than Meister to Sherwood. GREYTEK: Are you asking us to do an additional model on that area? KRASIENKO: Obviously, there is a lot of concern with putting a detention basin in Nottingham Woods. The City of Lorain does not possess a good track record of maintaining anything. There is nothing that we can tell the people that live around Nottingham Woods that it that will change. We can give them our assurances, we can put all the best intentions out there but we do not have a 13

14 good track record. We have a study from 1982 that told us to put in culverts and lowering the channel. We put in the culverts which effectively did nothing. It didn t lower the channel. We don t have much to give our residents that says if we put this pond in your back yards that it will look like something you see in a magazine or that it will be maintained. We have nothing to prove to them that we can handle the undertaking of that and continue to maintain something like that. I need to know all of our other options outside of Nottingham detention basin. GREYTEK: We certainly can take a look at doing an impact model of the downstream area assuming only channel improvements and create a water surface projection that would then show you what areas would be affected by a 2-year, 10-year, 25-year storm after the channel improvements are done. This study does not have that information in there but it can be done. KRASIENKO: I still don t understand why we can t use the paved channel to limit, slow down or meter the flow that will be going down stream and use our largest capacity, to use some of that capacity to meter that flow that will go down stream. I see that one storm culvert on the turnpike all the time where it s a 20-foot wide stream and it s got concrete vault doors coming into it that goes through about a two foot opening. They are metering their flow through there; it can act as a spillway at a certain point and roll over the top but they meter it so that only so much goes downstream. What would it take for us to be able to do the same thing so we don t create a bigger problem downstream north of the paved channel? It looks like we need to take care of everything downstream of the channel improvements to prevent just moving a problem. MAYOR: I know where you are getting at Mr. Krasienko. The Nottingham Woods retention basin isn t a popular thing to do with the people who have come out tonight and the people who live adjacent to that. If Council would give us the culvert improvements, would we accept that and need to know how much of a problem that is going to cause downstream. Obviously, it isn t going to cause any more of a problem downstream except in Windsor Court where if we are going to get that rainstorm and the bigness of that area as a retention pond itself..those houses aren t going to get screwed up in a major storm. We have the chance with what you are getting at with helping alleviate the flooding problem not eliminate but alleviate to a great extent as we showed on the graph behind me by moving forward with just the culvert improvements. I think the engineers saved the Windsor Court people. Is it the optimal solution, no, 30 or 40 years ago, this was an issue and 30 years from now it will be an issue to a much lesser extent because it won t flood as much. The extent won t be as bad because of the culvert. We have the chance here to work at it and solve the problem. As far as the maintenance of that, I feel confident that the future Administrations will see to it that it is maintained in a very proper manner according to the plan that is being laid out here with the engineers. Obviously, we like the whole thing. KRASIENKO: I m talking about utilizing capacity where we have it and doing the channel improvements and seeing where it takes us. It s the same idea. The ultimate goal is the same. We are just looking at it from another angle that we didn t look at prior. MAYOR: I understand. Yes, we can do the channel improvements and see where it gets us. I feel pretty comfortable in the engineers estimates that it will get us exactly where they say and to get to the next level you have to build a retention basin. It doesn t have to be there. 14

15 KRASIENKO: I would like to see the channel improvements with something done downstream of the channel improvements and figure in the Cooper Foster detention basin and see how that affects it. That changes the whole model again. The possibilities are limitless. I just think we need to do things a little smarter with the least amount of impact. As far at the Cooper Foster detention basin, it brings up that back in 1998 or 1999 Council & the Administration then passed some legislation to sue those south of us for the increased flow coming into our borders. What is the status of that litigation? EDWARDS: We just talked about it but nothing ever happen. LAW DIRECTOR: When was that? KRASIENKO: It was in 1988 or It was right after we did the SSO project. We were talking about trying to deal with the surface water issue. The Safety Service Director Koury & the legal department found where we can actually take up litigation to impel the people south of our boarders who are contributing to our surface water flooding issue to contribute monetarily to help solve the problem. Our problem is not just ours. Everything is coming in from the south of us. We obviously have some issues of our own to take care of but development to the south of us is definitely contributed to the increase flow of that waterway. LAW DIRECTOR: I do know of some cities in Cuyahoga that did file suit exactly for that reason adjacent to a community. They were not successful, however, perhaps they weren t pursuing it the way they should ve pursued it. I can research that issue for you to let you know whether or not the City does have a chance of prevailing in such an action. KRASIENKO: I believe we passed a resolution and there was case law that was backing us up. We felt pretty confident about it. The bad part was that it was going to take a certain amount of time. Ultimately, what you wanted to do is settle it before it would get to a jury or court. Here we are eight or nine years later, we might have had something by now and had those south of us contributing to the solution rather than contributing to the problem. I think that definitely needs to be resurrected. I know previously when project dry basement came up the same question was asked and nothing done with it because we still don t have an answer or know what happened with it once the resolution from Council was passed. IAFELICE: My recollection of it is that under 6119 in the Ohio Revised Code, City Council was considering authorizing us to do a study to estimate, to develop a theory?, to study that because it involves the ability for you to assess properties outside of your jurisdiction but it died in Council and was not authorized. KRASIENKO: I will check on that because we lov e to sue people south of our borders that would have no repercussions on ourselves. LAW DIRECTOR: It wasn t the issue before Council.it was the study to do the work for the foundation for which the law director at the time felt they needed in order to initiate litigation against the County. 15

16 EDWARDS: One thing that was in a conversation some time back was to bring the County into the equation to talk to our neighbors south of us to maybe look at putting in some type of holding pond. That was one of the main reasons in talking to the people south of us to try to get the County involved. We felt the County could have some leverage and bring them to the table vs. us being hit with a law suit. HOLCOMB: I just wanted to agree with Mr. Krasienko and his approach to what he was just recommending. I think we need to see some modeling done with the channel improvements with what the Cooper Foster detention basin would look like. According to the letter that was just read to us from the County, the County wasn t interested in Phase I that is being proposed. Maybe, we should change Phase I and make them involved in the project by including the Cooper Foster project. It would be a shame if we couldn t help out the County in the future when they have some problems with their failed sewer projects like we have in the past. I think we should bring them to the table by bringing the issue now and bringing the channel improvements now and then looking at the Cooper Foster detention basin instead of the Nottingham Woods. I think this obviously warrants some further discussion. SILECKY: I would also like to add my support for Mr. Krasienko s ideas. It is a different way of looking at a solution to our problem. It seems like we have been looking at the old solution since I agree that cleaning the channel out all the way to the mouth of the lake would be the fastest scenario right now to work with. Also, those homes on Windsor Court are in a natural retention area. Our Administration has been working with FEMA to possibly purchase those homes which would give us the availability of that land to use as a retention basin downstream with the addition to what we could do in the paved area to slow the waterways down. I think it would be a very cost effective and opportunistic way of moving that water downstream. As Mr. Holcomb & Mr. Krasienko have said, to work with the County on a larger detention basin on the other side of Cooper Foster as the older plan showed, we need 30 acres and to get them involved and work together on creating that detention basin as a second phase; especially now, knowing about the mitigation that could come from that and the costs that we could save to our citizens in pursuing this type of plan instead of what we had before us. I would greatly support the fact of looking at this in a different light and different options that would be available to us and not just the same one as we have seen before. CURCI: Nick Curci, 4670 Washington Avenue (abuts Nottingham Woods):. I also own several lots in the Nottingham Woods itself through which a portion of Martin s Run flows over my property. I certainly want to express that I am opposed to having this detention basin located in this area for a number of reasons. I would like to acknowledge the fact (for the purpose of the chair & Council) in the audience this evening there are a number of residents who are directly interested and may directly be affected by what happens to this retention basin whether Council approves it or not. I would like Council to have the opportunity of viewing by a show of hands of the people in the audience who are here on their own behalf as showing an interest in the Nottingham Woods. One thing I do agree with in regards to this proposal is that something needs to be done. I am sure that all the residents share this thought. The people who are getting flooded in the Tower and Oberlin Avenue area need some kind of relief, however, I feel that the relief that would be useful to them does not come with creation of a retention/detention pond in Nottingham Woods. I would like to also say that we are in agreement with the Administration and their proposal to this extent. The engineers who are present this evening may also speak and have an opportunity to make their claim. 16