Storm Water Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Councilmember Brickner, Ed Spinopoulos.

Here.

Paul Hegan.

Here.

Bill Leard. Paul Nelson.

Here.

Scott Severson. Here. Councilman Vasquez or Councilwoman Harris. All right, you have a quorum.

Okay. So, I guess we'll start with the new business on the docket. Item SM260017, the NIPSCO. Is there somebody here?

I'm sorry. I'm going to add that we have Attorney Patton on the phone with us. Sorry about that. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Could you state your address, please?

name and address? Yeah, my name is Cody Banks. Address is 4655 Westville Road, Hanna, Indiana, 46340.

Thank you. Okay. I'll see. Why not?

Yeah, I'll just add for the record that Councilman Brittenary is now joining us. So the applicant is NIPSCO in the care of Karameeta. They are requesting to rewrap the existing aerial gas pipeline crossing over Hanna Ditch north of County Road 900 south and east of County Road 450 east. at the approximate red circle shown there on your screen. Staff has reviewed the application and the construction plans. As I mentioned, they are proposing to rewrap an existing aerial gas pipeline by excavating within the regulated drainage easement associated with Hannon Ditch, which is an open drain. The work will include excavation of a five-foot by five-foot area at both ends of the existing aerial pipeline that spans Cannon Ditch to assess the condition of the 16-inch transmission gas line and apply a new wrapping if necessary. Crews will access the location via the existing NIPSCO transmission right-of-way line or easement from 864 South County Road 450 East. The excavation areas for the pipeline maintenance will be located near the top of Bank of Hannon Ditch. Proper erosion and sediment control measures will be put in place per the construction plans to minimize the potential for sediment and other pollutants to make their way into Hannon Ditch. At this time, staff recommends approval for the maintenance of the aerial 16-inch transmission gas line, including areas of excavation within the regulated drainage easement associated with Cannon Ditch. The standard terms and conditions shall apply, including the execution of a hold harmless agreement. Staff also requests that the following special provision be applied to the project to contact the department at least 72 hours prior to the start of work within the regulated drainage easement. And that concludes my staff report.

Do you have any questions or comments?

No, I do not. Anything from the board?

Is this just part of a program that you guys are going around to different parts and doing it?

Yeah, all over Nipsco's region.

So there's a lot of these aerial gas pipelines over ditches and they're on a... Are there hotter spots than other ones that you've identified or is that why this one's the one that right now we're...

I'm not sure how they go through there, how they pick which ones, but they pick a whole batch of them all at once. Okay.

Any questions? And you just, you're rewrapping them with what?

Yeah, correct. The excavation area is where the aerial pipe touches the ground on either end of the ditch. So they just dig back a very small area, check the ramp that's on it, and then based on what they see, rewrap it with new material. Okay.

I'd like to mention, Andy, Vasquez joined us. Any more questions? So it's just standard maintenance, basically? Yes. Okay. Motion? I motion to approve the application. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Passes. That was easy. Thank you.

And this case will be presented from our management board at their August 25th meeting. And then the hold harmless agreement will be sent to you following that meeting. And the final approval letter will be sent after we get the executed hold harmless agreement. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, the second one on the docket is SM260019, developer of city services, DLZ, Indiana LLC. Good evening. How's it going? If you could state your name.

After you, Christina.

Christina Coloje, DLZ, address 900 Ridge Road, Munster, Indiana.

Nate McGinley of Valparaiso City Services, 669 Bones Bridge Road, Cowlitz, Indiana. Okay.

All right. So the applicant is Valparaiso City Services in the care of DLZ Indiana. They are proposing to install a new 16-inch C900 PVC raw water main via open trench construction and a 20-inch C906 HDPE raw water main via horizontal directional drilling within the regulated drainage easement and across Flintley Garden Terrace Ditch at Erin Drive and along Burlington Beach Road at the approximate red circle areas on your screen. So the, Melissa, if you want to go to the next slide, please. The project is for the Valparaiso City Services Rural Water Main Project. It is to connect the new proposed wells that you see in the bottom right hand area of your screen to the existing water treatment plant up on Erin Drive. So the new raw water main will cross Flint Lake Garden Terrace Ditch at the two separate locations shown previously at Erin Drive and on Burlington Beach Road. The work will include the installation of the 16-inch PVC water main via open trench construction and the 20-inch HDPE raw water main via horizontal directional drilling. They're proposing to install the 20-inch HDPE raw water main under Flint Lake Garden Terrace Ditch at Erin Drive on the Department of Water Works property. If you go to the next slide, please. For the construction plans as shown on the screen, 18 inches of separation distance will be provided between the proposed water main and the two 24-inch culverts carrying Erin Drive over Flint Lake Garden Terrace Ditch. Staff requests that the construction plans be revised to provide a minimum of 60 inches of separation distance from the invert of Flint Lake Garden Terrace ditch and the proposed water main in accordance with Indiana Administrative Code and Porter County standards. The jack and receiving bore pits will be located outside the regulated drainage easement associated with Flint Lake Garden Terrace ditch. The applicant is also proposing to install a new 16-inch raw water main via open trench construction that will then transition to a 20-inch water main via horizontal directional drilling on the north side and under Burlington Beach Road. Go to the next slide, please. You can see the Proposed raw water main north of the sidewalk there along Burlington Beach Road. It will be the 16-inch raw water main for a short portion within the regulated drainage easement via open trench construction and then transition to that 20-inch water main via horizontal directional drilling. If you go to the next slide, Melissa, please, you can see that the raw water main will continue to be installed along the north side of Burlington Beach Road. Next slide, please. At this location, it will then start to transition to be installed underneath Burlington Beach Road, still within the regulated drainage easement associated with Flint Lake Garden and Terrace Ditch. Next slide, please. um and then continue to be installed underneath burlington beach road and then on the next slide you'll see here on sheet c 1.10 this is the location where the 20 inch water main will be installed under flint lake garden terror stitch underneath the five foot by eight foot box culvert that is carrying burlington beach road over flint lake garden terror stitch per the construction plans 18 inches of separation distance will be provided between the proposed water main and the five foot by eight foot box culvert. Staff requests that the construction plans be revised to provide a minimum of 60 inches of separation distance from the invert of Flint Lake Art Interior Stitch and the proposed water main in accordance with the Indiana Administrative Code and Porter County standards. At this time, staff recommends approval of the installation of the proposed 16-inch C900 PVC water main via open trench construction and 20-inch C906 HDPE raw water main via horizontal directional drilling within and under the Flint Lake Garden Terrace ditch. the standard terms and conditions shall apply including the following special provisions revise the construction plans to provide a minimum separation distance of 60 inches between the proposed raw water main and flint lake or interior stitch and contact the department at least 72 hours prior to this part of work that concludes my staff report any questions or comments no sir could you cite that code again that you referenced So the Indiana code that we found was Indiana Administrative Code 327-8-3.2-17, but also Porter County standards of crossing the regulated drain. The 60 inches of separation distance is what we have required of previous any utility that has regulated drain.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

No further questions. Thank you. Any questions?

Mr. Chairman, I have a quick one. Typically, Valparaiso Company in the past, they always required ductile iron. And now you're using HDPE. Is this a practice now?

So it was back in 2022. Our board amended our construction specifications to allow the use of C-900 PVC and HDPE pipe. Back then, some of it was due to the restraints that we had with obtaining ductile, but we've also noticed that with our soil content, how acidic it can be in certain areas, that we've moved to utilizing PVC in the areas because we've had a lot of main breaks due to soil issues, even with polyurethane ductile iron.

It's a departure, and that's why I had to ask.

Sure. To give you an example, one of our recent projects, we installed 16-inch PVC all the way out to Aberdeen, where we had some areas of frequent main breaks. So we have about 1,800 feet of HDP in service that's relatively the same size as this, and that's been since 2003, I think it was, that we put that in. So we've also allowed multiple developers recently to start using C900 DR14 in new developments. So it's very recent, but we are beginning to allow it as an alternate to ductile iron.

I assume you're inspecting and watching them very closely. Correct. This impacts the roads and our ditches as well.

we will have full-time inspectors on site, and we always typically do, too, in-house staff.

Any other questions?

Well, I've got one for Kevin here. The composition of the material that they're using now, is it less quality or just different quality? It's a different quality, different purposes. The ductile iron was considered state-of-the-art for the longest time, and Valparaiso was one of the few utilities that absolutely refused to allow flats into their service. So coming from that other side a long time ago, that was something we couldn't even experiment with. So hopefully we have better results. Time will tell, unfortunately. But considering the soils, the frosting issues that we have, a lot of it, I suspect, has to do with bedding as well.

I also wanted to provide another example. I just thought back in 2015, we did quite a few wells all the way out of Washington Township. And all of that raw water main is PVC pipe as well. So we've got about a little over 10 years on those mains that come from those wells to our airport plant as well.

That was going to be my question.

How many years have you been working with us?

And how often do you inspect them when you say inspect them?

So when I say inspect, we have construction inspectors from our city services team along with DLZ representatives on site every day inspecting all these waterways that go in. We don't often go out and dig them up to inspect them. But what I can tell you is. our history for ductile iron versus our history in PVC. Obviously, we've been using PVC for a short term, but I can tell you we've had to repair water main breaks on pipe from 2017 that's ductile iron. We're not leaving ductile iron, it's just for a project such as this with the directional boring and

nature of that this and the soil condition we chose to move forward with the pvc pipe we thought it better be suited for this application in this area thank you the other issue they run huge replacement parts and that's flexibility availability in different types of pipes fittings gaskets whatever you need to to take care of the system And the other caveat a lot of times with plastics is because they're underground, you don't have to worry about UV protection as much. But unfortunately, with a lot of the household pipes that are used, PEX, for example, is very popular. There's more of an inherent issue if they've been out and exposed to the sun in the yard. And they break down. Yeah. Not that they necessarily would, but there's a chance they'd be more brittle and have a chance of failure. But that's a handling and shipping problem. Thank you.

Absolutely.

I just have a question. When you say it's directional boring, is it continuous, or is it like a bell end where they glue it?

Yeah, so HDP is typically fusion welded, so they'll weld certain sections of it, and then once they pull the reamer back, tie it up to the HDP, they'll pull it in in long sections. Fewer fusion points. With SertaLock pipe, that we'll also utilize, that is a belt and spigot style joint, but it's a restrained joint where there's actually like a zip-tied zipper fitting that goes into the belt, and there's like a tongue and groove, so when that zipper goes in, it's locked.

Absolutely, yeah.

We use that same type of pipe for sanitary sewer, but it was for the large 30-year-old force main project you guys had permits on a few years ago.

Yeah, PPC has proven itself over the years. Well, all right. Any more questions? Can I get a motion? I motion to accept the staff recommendation.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Thank you all.

Thank you. Yeah, this will be presented at the 25th Stormwater Management Board meeting. You're welcome to attend, but not required. The hold harmless agreement will be sent to you following that meeting, and then the final approval letter will be issued after we get the recorders hold harmless agreement back. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you.

I guess the manager's report.

Yeah, so I know we were all talking and joking before the start of the meeting that whoever's doing the rain dance can stop. I'm sorry. I have not been doing it, but whoever in this region has been doing it, please stop. um so we have obviously received a decent amount of rain um luckily most of our infrastructure has held up fairly well um the drainage complaints we definitely have received um quite a few i know from that june to mid-july time frame we had received around 75 um i think now since that mid-july time frame to now the past month we've received around 25 to 30. so Large influx of drainage complaints that we have received this year. Our staff has done a great job of responding to them going out, and if there's a project necessary, getting that taken care of. I know one thing that we have been responding to, those of you in the Chesterton area that drive Brummett Road, Near the County Highway North Garage, the culvert that is carrying North Folk Southern Railroad over Kemper Ditch Arm 23 has become clogged by a beaver dam. A huge thank you to Rob Goodman with our office. So going out, investigating, and trying to contact the railroad to get that ball rolling, but also getting contractors lined up. So, and also coordinating with the town of Chesterton, because there was pretty significant flooding within Easton Park subdivision, which is immediately upstream of this culvert. Talking with the town of Chesterton, that flooding wasn't just because of this block culvert. There was a lot of construction site issues that had led to the flooding of the home. um definitely not getting that the beavers trapped now that we know that it is the beaver issue getting that culvert opened up and working with the railroad there so um that has been the major flooding issue that we have had in the county and not necessarily as a result of our infrastructure but more the railroad infrastructure and the cause of it is the beavers To date, we have initiated 46 projects. We have two capital improvement projects underway. One is one I've been talking about quite a bit. It's the Rolling Meadows storm sewer reconstruction project. They're nearing substantial completion. All underground work is done, which is excellent. um they're just doing the road preparation work now so doing the the cut out of the the limestone subgrade for the asphalt and then buttoning up just some of the curb work and those such things but asphalt should be placed end of this week substantial completion date is august 15th the contractor has not requested additional time yet but i don't see them hitting that date this week of placing asphalt so I would assume that the road will be paved sometime next week. The other capital improvement project is the Hackney Lane joint project that we're working with the Highway Department on. Site conditions have not been favorable. There is a significant amount of standing water, ponding water at this location, so the contractor has been trying to dewater. But with all the rain, that has made it a little more difficult. So they were thinking they would be able to start this upcoming Monday. Hopefully they're still able to get the site watered and get that project going. So I'll have some cool pictures to share with that one that will be a little bit of storm sewer reconstruction, but then a vial swale installation. So kind of seeing a little bit different construction work than we typically. So with that, that concludes my stormwater program.

Thank you, Chelsea.

Yep.

Thank you, Chelsea. Any other discussion?

You mentioned Eastport. Is it Easton Park?

Easton Park, yeah.

Is it going to stop build right now? Yes, yeah. So is that dependent on the town to get their part done and the beavers to get out?

So the stop work order was issued by the town of Chesterton, and that was related to the construction site issues. So I think some erosion and sediment control measures weren't installed properly. And then I think there was, they also mentioned maybe there were some grading issues, but we are not involved with the stop work order. And that is not, I think that, so the flooding issues were partially caused by that Beaver Dam, but the stop work order is not related to the Beaver Dam.

They're totally in the town of Chesterton, although they're across from the county highway bridge or county highway facility up in Chesterton.

Yeah.

So the railroad on their north side, it's a little bit.

Yeah.

But we weren't impacted with the highway problem.

So our highway garage, the buildings have had water in them on the east side of Brummett Road. And then our parking lot, the county highway's parking lot has had quite a bit of standing water as well on the east side of the road.

We had it again then. That's what you're saying?

That's the current condition with the block culvert, yeah. So I and there's also like one on on incorporated house in that area that the water surrounding the House it hasn't gotten into structure as far as we have been told, but definitely want to get it resolved as quickly as possible.

yeah good year to find all the problems in yeah yes.

Any other things.

Thank you. Okay, so the next meeting would be September 14th at 5 o'clock in the same room, 205. Do I get a motion to recess?

I make a motion to recess.

Second.

Second.

Second. Third. Second.