Bargersville officials intend to fix drainage issues in the Three Notch neighborhood using a $600,000 grant.
The Community Development Block Grant comes from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs or OCRA. Town leaders applied for the grant earlier this year, and were awarded it on Aug. 31, said Dan Cartwright, town manager.
Bargersville was one of 17 rural Indiana communities to receive $11.1 million in federal grant funding, distributed by the state through OCRA to create and expand community facilities and improve water infrastructure, according to OCRA.
There have long been drainage issues in the Three Notch subdivision, which is located northwest of the County Road 144 and State Road 135 intersection. Town officials recently oversaw several street repaving projects in the neighborhood. Drainage, an item long in need of upgrading, was next on the list, Cartwright said.
“It’s an older area that has, quite honestly, been overlooked for several years. We’ve made a concentrated effort this year to get some of the infrastructure work done,” he said.
The drainage was so poor, that roads in the neighborhood would have water standing in them, and some neighbors experienced ponding in their yards. That’s a health and safety issue, he said.
“In the neighborhood, with a good rain, it would have water standing in it. Water standing in grassy areas, not only does it not look nice, it creates a place for mosquitos,” Cartwright said. “But most of it was related to the roads and streets in there, water was not getting away as fast as it should and it resulted in water standing in some areas of the streets.”
For the project, construction workers will replace the stormwater pipe, which has deteriorated over time, Joe Csikos, the town’s director of development.
“A majority of the roadways in Three Notch experience some degree of flooding during a heavy rain. As the project is the trunk line, the main conveyance of stormwater from the yards and streets to the outlet point, this should serve to improve the overall conditions of the neighborhood,” he said. “This will not eliminate all streets and yard flooding but serve to improve the overall conditions by allowing stormwater to effectively flow to the outfall.”
The project will also help eliminate the possibility of sinkholes, which are common in yards along the trunk line, he said.
Before the grant funding came through, town officials had been unable to find room in the budget to alleviate the problem, Cartwright said.
Along with upgrading pipe, the project will include new manholes and catch basins, which contain grates with pipes used to drain excess water. Earthwork to replace the pipes may cause some disruptions to neighborhood roadways, but digging locations won’t be finalized until design work is done, he said.
Town officials will next work with Indianapolis-based firm Christopher B. Burke Engineering to complete design work, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Once design work is finished, town leaders will be able to collect bids and determine the project cost. If everything goes according to that timeline, construction work would start in the spring and wrap up sometime next year, Cartwright said.
“It’s going to be a significant impact,” he said. “They’ll see improvements in drainage immediately when it’s completed.”
