08-20-18 Health and Public Saftey & Utilities

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Al Kirsits, 722 Marquette Avenue, And also owns a home at 723 Marquette Avenue, stated, I was an At-Large Council Member from 2000-2012 and chaired the Utilities Committee. It was during my time on the Council that we doubled the sewage rate and passed the largest bond issue in history of$88 million for infrastructure work so we wouldn't have these issues. It is dire straits in the North Shore Triangle. For my family, it wasn't one (1) event, it has been a series of events. I can look at the storm sewer and tell on a moderate rain if I'm going to have sewage in my mother's house across the street. Clearly we haven't kept up with our infrastructure improvement. I appreciate Lawson Fisher. I would like to know about the fifty-one(5 1)inch CSO pipe that comes down Leeper Avenue. We also have a CSO coming from the south side past the Leeper Park area that crosses the river. They said it is a separated system, it is not. Maybe it is. But how can you have that much storm water pressure get into the sewers and it literally exploded my mom's trap. I know five (5) people who have the backflow preventers and they all failed. I personally used a solid oak hazmat plug. Somehow we are getting too much water and too much pressure. Somewhere that storm water is infiltrating the sewer and putting pressure on it, so we have to do something. That CSO that takes the water down Leeper was done in 2007. It was my impression we were going to get improvements next in our neighborhood. I am concerned about sanitary capacity coming down the ten(10)inch line from Notre Dame. We need to look at it and put some money into it. It's a good neighborhood and I hate to see it go down the tubes. I've been allowed to appeal my property taxes,because they know there is going to be sewage water in the basement, and that's not a good thing for resale or for people living there on a day to day basis. We had major flooding in 2000 in McKinnley Terrace. Karl King took it seriously. Please take it seriously and get some help for these neighborhoods so we don't have to worry every time it rains. Committee Chair Teshka asked if the gentlemen from LFA or Public Works would like to respond to any of the public's comments. Mr. Fahey stated, Specific recommendations were made by LFA. These include the City evaluating the current design criteria for determining sewer capacity and storm water storage. While the City's criteria is in line with other municipalities, given recent storms and events, the evaluation of existing criteria seems appropriate. We are in agreement with this finding. Currently, new storm lines are designed for an occurrence of every ten (10) years and duration of six (6) hours, and the proposal would be to increase the occurrence for a twenty-five(25)year storm over a duration of twenty-four (24) hours. The City should continue to offer the basement valve program. The City should be part of the route videoing, cleaning and repairing of South Bend's sewer system, and it is suggested that the City place particular emphasis on the neighborhoods featured in this report. For example, in the North Shore Triangle area, four(4) full time members of the sewer crew were in the neighborhood from March until Jul this year. They videoed 30,000 feet of sewer lines, so that is almost five and a half(5.5) miles. There has also been ongoing cleaning, so some of the information that was presented today has been improved since it was gathered, and we will maintain this approach in this and other neighborhoods included in this report. He continued, The City researched the possibility of a notification system along multiple media platforms to provide residents with notifications and information about direct flooding events. We've started to work with the United States Geological Survey and the Army Corps of Engineers. We're coming up with a mechanism where we would be able to know specifically per each address in town,how much rainfall is expected, and then we would be able to apply this to a model and it EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building',227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 i f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 iwww.southbendin.gov 13