STATE OF MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP DIVISION HEARING TO DETERMINE NECESSITY

Transcription

1 STATE OF MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP DIVISION IN THE MATTER OF: ALLEGAN AND OTTAWA COUNTY DRAINAGE KELLY LAKE INTERCOUNTY DRAIN / HEARING TO DETERMINE NECESSITY Public Hearing on the th day of April,, at the Laketown Township Hall, A- Beeline Road, Holland, Michigan at :0 p.m. A P P E A R A N C E S Brady Harrington Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development West Allegan Street P.O. Box 00 Lansing, MI 0 () -0 Becky Rininger Allegan County Drain Commissioner 1 Chestnut Street Allegan, Michigan 0 () -00 Paul M. Geerlings Ottawa County Drain Commissioner Fillmore, Room 1 West Olive, MI 0 () -0 1

2 ALSO PRESENT: Claire Schwartz, P.E., Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber, Inc. Tom Bennett, Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber, Inc. Recorded and Bonnie L. Rozema, CLVS, CER-1 Transcribed by: 00 nd Street, S.W. Byron Center, MI () -01

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Opening Remarks by Mr. Harrington Election of Chairman and Secretary Engineer Presentation Public Hearing 0 Motion in Support Vote Motion to Add or Subtract Lands Vote EXHIBITS: Notice of Meeting of Board of Determination Agenda Attendance Sheets Speaker Cards Photos

4 Holland, Michigan Thursday, April, - :0 p.m. P R O C E E D I N G S MR. HARRINGTON: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brady Harrington. I'm a deputy for the director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Keith Creagh, and I serve as chair for county drainage boards here in Michigan. To my left is Paul Geerlings. He's the Ottawa County Drain Commissioner. To my right is Becky Rininger, Allegan County Drain Commissioner, and we serve as the drainage board for the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain. We are here today for a hearing on necessity for completing maintenance and improvement as was petitioned by Laketown Township. Also with us today is Tom Bennett and Claire Schwartz from Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr and Huber. They've done some preliminary inspection on the drain and will be giving a presentation of their findings. Theresa Conrad is also with the Ottawa County Drain Commissioner's office. And down at the far end of the table, Bonnie Rozema is keeping a transcript of these proceedings, so we'd ask that any time you have something to say during public comment, you state your name for her benefit and make sure you're at a microphone. Appreciate that. Our first order of business is commissioners, do

5 you have anyone here that you'd like to introduce? MR. GEERLINGS: Nobody besides who you have already. MS. RININGER: We have Al Meshkin who is the Laketown Township Manager, and also Craig Atwood from the Allegan County Road Commission. MR. HARRINGTON: Okay. With that I guess we can elect a secretary to keep notes. MR. GEERLINGS: I would move that Ottawa County act as secretary for this meeting. MS. RININGER: I'll second that. MR. HARRINGTON: We have a motion and support for Ottawa County to serve as secretary. All those in favor, "aye." MS. RININGER: Aye. MR. GEERLINGS: Aye. MR. HARRINGTON: Motion passes. As I said before, the reason we're here is because we received a petition requesting maintenance and improvements to the Kelly Lake Drain. I'm going to read that petition, and it did come from the Laketown Township board. "At a regular meeting of the Laketown Township board held at the township office, Beeline Road, Holland, Michigan on the th day of June at o'clock

6 p.m., present Hofmeyer, VanHuis, Dewey, Stielstra, and Scanlan. The following resolution was offered by Dewey and seconded by Scanlan. Whereas Laketown Township recognizes that it is necessary for the public health, convenience, or welfare to extend and make improvements to the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain, as outlined by Laketown Township and the specifications of the Allegan County Road Commission, concerning improvements to or replacement of an existing bridge on th Avenue that has been closed by the Allegan County Road Commission that will assist or relieve the flow of the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain, an intercounty drain located in Ottawa and Allegan Counties pursuant to Chapter of the Michigan Drain Code. And whereas a portion of the lands to be benefitted by the maintenance, improvement, and extension to the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain are located within Laketown Township. And whereas Laketown Township recognizes that it will be subject to assessment at large to pay for a percentage of the cost of the drain project. Now, therefore, be it resolved that pursuant to Chapter of the Michigan Drain Code, Laketown Township is authorized to execute a petition for the maintenance, improvement, and extension of the Kelly Lake Intercounty

7 Drain. Be it further resolved that the township supervisor and township clerk are authorized to sign all documents necessary to effectuate the intent of the petition, and upon execution, shall forward the petition to the Allegan County Drain Commissioner. Yeas were Hofmeyer, VanHuis, Dewey, Stielstra, and Scanlan. None were opposed. The resolution was declared adopted. The petition itself reads, "To the County Drain Commissioner of the County of Allegan. Petitioner hereby petitions for extension and improvements to the drain known and designated as the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain located and established in Laketown Township, Allegan County, and Park Township, Ottawa County, State of Michigan, as outlined by the Laketown Township and the specifications of the Allegan County Road Commission concerning improvements to or replacement of an existing bridge on th Avenue that has been closed by the Allegan County Road Commission. Petitioner is the Township, and this petition has been authorized by its governing body, as evidenced by the attached resolution. The petitioner is the municipality which will be liable to assessments at large for at least a percentage of the total amount to be

8 assessed for the cost of the proposed drain project. Your petitioner further shows that said improvements will properly purify or improve the flow of the drain as necessary and conducive to the public health, convenience, or welfare of Laketown Township." Signed by Terry Hofmeyer, its supervisor. There was a subsequent hearing that many of you probably attended that occurred on November 1st, at which time this board found that petition practical, and found that it was done in compliance with the drain code, and today they're here to consider, based on your testimony and based on the engineer's presentation, whether or not it's necessary to proceed with the improvements that have been requested. The two commissioners will be making the decision on necessity, again, based on your testimony, and I will only vote in the event of a tie. I guess with that, Tom or Claire, if you want to give your findings, when they're done with that, we'll proceed with public comment. MR. BENNETT: Board, as Brady mentioned, we're here for a hearing of necessity, and we've done some preliminary review out here relative to looking at th, and then also relative to some of the stream system upstream and downstream of th, so I'm going to do a

9 brief presentation in that regards. As Brady indicated, we're here basically for a hearing of necessity. The folks that are here today, you got a notice because you were located within the watershed associated with this project. I've got a couple images around, an image over on your right and then one over on your left here. If you're within that red boundary, as identified on this image here, you're within the watershed of the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain which empties into Macatawa here, and it flows from Kelly Lake, and it extends on up to th. This is th culvert that we're going to be talking about. But if you're within this district, that's why you got a notice, your waters go and contribute to the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain. The goals of the presentation today is to basically review what's been done since the petition in, and then identify what the limits of the project are because there were somewhat defined limits that we're going to be talking about specifically today, and where we went with that, and then also to discuss some modification to this boundary which was done, and Claire will talk about that in a little bit in detail, but some lands have been added to the watershed, and some have been removed from the watershed based on that water either flows into there that didn't used to or wasn't identified as such, or for waters

10 that no longer flow into the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain. And then we're going to talk a little bit about some of the conditions upstream and downstream of th Avenue culvert and what the drain -- what was observed out there and what may need to be done. And that's going to be talking about some of the proposed work activities, and provides some cost estimates for consideration. As Mr. Harrington indicated, the petition was for general language extending and improving the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain with specific concern by Laketown Township relative to addressing th culvert. So a process began with a petition which was filed, as Mr. Harrington read, at Laketown Township on June th,, and was determined practicable November 1st, and from that then we initiated some preliminary design or study. The limits of the project were then defined after that hearing, and they were defined basically so revising the drainage district to make sure the drainage district was accurate, lands that belonged in are in, and ones that no longer were in have been removed. And then looking at replacing the th culvert. And then looking at what the improvements to that culvert ultimately what that would result in any impacts associated with upstream and downstream relative to maintenance activities within the

11 existing Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain, and then also a tributary which flows under th. Claire, if you'd talk a little bit about the added lands, and then I'll pick back up and talk a little bit about the specifics of the sites. MS. SCHWARTZ: Certainly. Okay, members of the board and members of the audience, I do want to describe for you now the process that we went through to determine whether or not lands to be added or deleted from the drainage district, and this is part of the process that the board is going to be deciding today, so if the project is determined necessary, then they would also decide whether or not to take our recommendations regarding lands added or deleted from the drain district. As Tom mentioned, you do have the boards there that you can refer to later. I'm going to be referring to this slide right now. So you already saw an image of the drainage district in our first slide. This is identical, except now it has a green line on it in addition to the red line. Let me orientate you to this a little bit, so Lake Macatawa, and Lake Michigan obviously, and 1, US 1, and then down to the south here's nd Street, and then here's the Allegan Ottawa County line. Here's th, and there's th. As Tom already said -- mentioned, a Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain is established from Lake Macatawa up

12 through Kelly Lake, and then to the east up to th Street. However, it also has a variety of other county drains and tributaries that flow into it. From the south along th Avenue we have the Tibbie Drain which comes from Gilligan Lake, and some other tributaries upstream from there. We have an unnamed tributary that flows into the county from the south, and that is actually the location of the road crossing at th which is currently now the road is closed because that crossing is in very poor condition, and then also the tributary from the upper end of the county continues all the way to the east there. So, the existing district, that red line that you see there contains about,00 acres of land. So it's a descent sized district. What you see shaded in red are lands that we're recommending be deleted from the district. What you see shaded in green are lands that we recommend to be added to the district. And the net effect of all of this would be actually a reduction of lands in the district from about,00 acres down to about,000 acres. So of that,000 acres, approximately percent of that's located in Allegan County, and that would be within Laketown Township, and approximately one percent is located in Ottawa County, and that would be within Park Township. So that gives you just an idea of some of the size and the ratios of land. In determining, making our

13 determination of this, we did start with the existing drain district boundary. We were aware of some recent adjacent drainage district boundaries that had been delineated, one being Virginia Park, and then we also have the Ottogan Intercounty Drain there. So we use that information to make sure that the boundaries would match up, there wouldn't be gaps or overlaps between drainage districts. We also use the counties, both Ottawa and Allegan GIS, Geographic Information System information. They have topographical information about the lay of the land, where the hills are, where the valleys are, that are shown and contour lines. And so we relied on that, and then went out and field verified that from our initial boundaries, so that we made adjustments. We either talked to several property owners where there were some -- you know, very detailed things happening. So in the end we came up then with the green line and the adjustments shown. So that will be our recommendation to the board today as to lands added and deleted, and then we would come up with a description of that, actually a legal description. So that is my part of the presentation in regard to that, and if there's questions later on, I'd be happy to answer. MR. BENNETT: Thanks Claire. There's, as we indicated a little bit earlier,

14 there is a proposed extension. As Claire indicated, there's a tributary that flows into the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain which basically this is existing. There is a proposed extension. The reason that that, in addition to an intercounty drain to the Kelly Lake system intercounty drain is because there's impact associated with the stability of that that might impact th culvert and stream -- and part of the watercourse downstream of that. So as part of this there's consideration to add an additional area of designation for a county drain as far as intercounty. Now we're going to go through just a little bit of characteristics. Again, what we focused on was to look specifically in the area of th culvert, which is right in this area here. We're looking a little bit upstream of it and Kelly Lake upstream to th, upstream to th, and then also looking at this tributary here. The focus of today's presentation is in that regard, so we're going to go over those, and then I'll talk a little bit about potential activities in the future. So for right now I'm going to start at Kelly Lake and go upstream and kind of give you a feel for what the watercourse looks like and the drain does. So immediately upstream of Kelly Lake, almost all the way up to the th culvert, the Kelly Lake

15 Intercounty Drain flows through a marsh system. There is good access to floodplain, and why is that important? Well, when you've got a floodplain there, it kind of helps the energies within the drain system kind of stay in control so it reduces the amount of erosion and sediment that goes, moves on down. Now there is sediment that does move through this system that goes into Kelly Lake and is being deposited there. But as a general rule, a good portion of the area immediately upstream of Kelly Lake is in a condition like this. It goes through a forested floodplain, and it's all wetland, it's a nice floodplain access, and it helps dissipate those energies. So next slide. Just another picture going upstream a little bit farther, maybe about 00 to a thousand feet upstream of Kelly Lake at that point. Then there are some areas we're proposing to do some work, because there are some areas that have high levels of instability within this section between Kelly Lake and th, and some of these areas were associated with channel kind of vending and moving around, and we are going to talk about some of the activities we'd like to recommend as far as for board's consideration for stabilizing those areas. Inclusive of that are areas where the channel is not just migrating, but it's also large

16 deposits of sediment. And we'll show you where a lot of the sediment is coming from as we proceed through the presentation. Again, large sediment bar. You can tell these are fairly active because there's no vegetation in some of these areas, which means after every major storm event, there's more sand being deposited on top of there, and there's not grass accumulated, so it's a constant accretion of material. So getting close to th, this is just upstream of that. You might recognize the tennis court area. The channel here is fairly narrow, fairly deep, and there are some erosions, small erosions, scars up into here. A lot of sediment in the bottom of the channel, but overall it's pretty stable at this location. Now we get to the th crossing, and many of you probably have seen this and are well aware of it. This is the existing crossing, this is the area which is proposed to be the focus relative to specific activities of replacing that culvert. Now we're going to go from that th culvert, we're going to continue on to Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain up to th. Once we get up into this area, there's a lot of trees that are down, there's a lot of erosion and sedimentation going on. You can see a large sediment bar here, a lot of trees. Those trees have fallen because the

17 channel is getting wider and undercutting the trees and so they're collapsing. Plus there's some ash trees in there, and the ash trees, as we all know, those are dying. That's a large ash tree there. The root system is kind of failing, the tree is getting undercut, so its ability to hold the bank is not too good anymore. So again, a lot of sediment load coming down from this area here. Banks are eroding, took us up to this part. Now we're going to take a look at this other area of the drain which is upstream of the th Avenue culvert. This is the area which is potentially an area for extension or adding a branch to the Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain, so it would be a designated portion of the drain. This is the th Avenue road. The culvert's right over here. Channel's relatively narrow. It's pretty stable, when you look next to the road it's pretty stable. You don't see a whole lot of erosion. Marsh system over on the -- on the east side, the west bank is farm field. Now that was looking south -- or north. Now we're looking to the south, and we're going to kind of follow this channel to the south. This is that same farm field. It's eroding into the field, and then there's a marsh on the -- on the east side. Now as you go upstream not too far actually, you might go a thousand feet or so, and you start getting into some pretty severe bank erosion. The reason this area

18 is potentially being recommended for inclusion as far as designated drain is because of some of the impairments associated with it, specifically impairments here are related to the bottom of the channel. In this particular case the bottom of the channel is actually getting lower and lower, so it's scouring down, and what it did, it's creating these small waterfalls, and all these are, there's a small water fall, then another water fall. You might end up with a three or four foot difference in elevation over a few hundred feet. Well that slope or that grade is a little too steep for it to hold itself from a stability standpoint. The bottom keeps getting cut down. Remember earlier we talked a little bit about having access to floodplain. Well there's not access to floodplain in many of these areas where the channel is getting down-cut. What that means is when you get a large storm event, the water can't leave the channel, and it causes scouring of the banks, and so we're getting a lot of scouring, we're getting erosion on the bottom, plus we're getting a lot of bank erosion in these areas. Again, moving up -- moving upstream, and here is a series of those areas which the bottom has kind of been cutting. It doesn't do it uniformly all the way up, it does it in stages, so basically there's like steps in a watercourse. So the intent would be to try to get some of

19 this stuff stabilized so that the banks would stop eroding, trees would stop falling in and creating blockages, so -- Again, moving upstream even a little bit farther, we're still not to th at this point. Again, the severe bank erosion, undercutting, pretty good grade. You can tell it's got a lot of slope here because you can see the flow is pretty quick through here. With the pictures that we saw immediately downstream of Kelly or upstream of Kelly Lake, the channel is actually pretty slow, pretty flat grade. That's not the case in this here, it's relatively steep and there's no access to floodplain. This is about the end of the area where we're recommending specifically might be inclusion as far as the drain. You can see a lot of sediment, a lot of the sand which is coming from into downstream of th is going from this area both from bank and bed erosion. So this is kind of a quick picture, and we'd be happy to answer any questions later on relative to specific. These are some of the activities we propose. Very limited scope relative to addressing in-stream instabilities, trying to relatively on focus on the culvert issue, but there's some impairments that ought to be addressed, specifically we'll call them channel realignment, and I'll show some pictures of what that means, but basically in the areas where the channel is kind

20 of meandering, really severely eroding the banks, putting a lot of sediment into the system. We're proposing to get that channel back in line with where it was originally. Then the new culvert is going to be right in that location there, and then we're calling riffle structures kind of seen in natural stream system, you'll see riffles, they kind of control the bed, so it stops eroding down. The intent here would be try to install a -- would be to install a few of those in this location, keep the bottom from lowering down any further than what it is, stable -- help stabilize the system. And then we indicate woody debris management, a lot of trees are going in, there's a lot of dead and dying trees which are on the banks that haven't gone in, and that would be to try to address some of that throughout this area here, and then as far as the distance upstream that the board decides to go designation on that, woody debris management would be incorporated up to that point. Okay, these are not pictures from -- these are just conceptually, these are not specific to the -- to Kelly Lake. The ones that were, the images I showed earlier, those are specific to the Kelly Lake. Basically we'd be coming in, we'd be taking out all the log jams that exist, trees that are dead or dying or have potential to create problems associated with the watercourse, those

21 would be removed and disposed of appropriately, whether the material is chipped up, whether it is hauled off the site, but basically in a place where it would not end up back in the watercourse. This is actually a manmade riffle structure here, and it's this area here. The intent of this project would be to create these types of conditions. What this does is it creates a step down from here to here. The elevation difference there is about a foot, so our objective would be to create these steps so that they're all stabilized so it stops cutting through -- through the bed and create further disconnect between the floodplain and the bottom of the channel. So these are what we're calling the riffle or grade patrol structures, and that's what we're proposing up in that location upstream of th. The channel realignment, pretty simple activity relative to conceptually. It's where there's a large bar forming, and we've got a few of these areas immediately upstream of the Kelly Lake. The objective here is to take this material, not necessarily fill it in to the floodplain, because that doesn't provide a benefit of a berm. Basically take this material, put it over on this side, stabilize it with erosion control blankets and vegetation, a fairly inexpensive way to get the channel back into a level of stability.

22 Now the reason it was unstable is because of sediment input. Some of this sediment input would be addressed upstream of th by installing those riffle structures. This is a conceptual. This is an actual culvert, but this is not the culvert that's going to necessarily be going into th, but it will be a concrete box culvert, at least that's what we've priced out at this point as an option. Claire will talk a little bit more about what that actual culvert will be when we get into some of the costs and maybe what the options are. If the board has questions we can get into that. But the proposed box would be a twelve by seven foot culvert, twelve foot in width, seven foot in height. And two foot of that will actually be set down into the bed. The reason is because the Department of Environment Quality requires now that there's a natural bottom within culverts. So to be able to get an up-sized culvert from height standpoint is to bury it in the bottom, so it can have a natural bottom for fish movement upstream and downstream of the culvert. This is basically the proposed alignment right now, and we could get into various alignments and what that would do with some cost alternatives. But again, it's a twelve foot by seven, two foot of it buried, and basically

23 it's going to propose to go in the same location where the existing culvert would be today. No change in alignment. Now as you -- you change the alignment in this kind of a direction to try to make it a little bit smoother, the cost goes up drastically, and as a result of the lengthening of the culvert. So there's a cost per foot. This is the least expensive alternative, and it gets more expensive if you actually extend it so you don't need guardrails, but those are a lot of different alternatives. This is the channel actually that we looked at earlier when we were looking to the north that runs along th. Proposed culvert for and the cost for the overall project. Right now the minimum alternative of using a box culvert which would expand the road and the existing conditions today, not any change in orientation of the culvert or any length of the culvert, would be approximately $0,000 to do so. If the Road Commission board or the township wanted to make a modification to that, the cost will basically go up. This is a minimal -- this is a minimum cost of what the replacement of the culvert would be. Doing all the woody remanagement, the in-stream structures, the riffles, and channel realignment, we're estimating approximately $,000. These costs are estimates at this point relative to the construction. You don't know what they are until which time the bids come in,

24 and that's when you can actually finalize it. This is a contingency. Other project costs include potential borrowing costs, administrative fees, and then a ten percent contingency on the project. So at this point estimated project costs, about $0,000. Claire, did you want to add to that? MS. SCHWARTZ: I think that's pretty complete, unless there's specific questions. MR. BENNETT: With that, board, we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. MR. HARRINGTON: Any questions from the board? MR. GEERLINGS: Not from me. MS. RININGER: On the proposed branch, you anticipate taking it upstream far enough to a stable point? MR. BENNETT: Up to the point where the head cutting -- or the bottom lowering is not occurring, so basically create a stop point right there, yes. MS. RININGER: Okay. And from that point on, it's in good shape? MR. BENNETT: It's not in bad shape. It can stabilize itself as long as we get the bottom stopped at that point. So what we drew up on the screen was approximately the length of what we identified having problems at this point. MS. RININGER: And would you say that it's the

25 sediment from this proposed branch and then the condition of the main drain that's probably carrying sediment down to Kelly Lake? MR. BENNETT: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. In fact this picture right here, this is just upstream of Kelly Lake. You see the whole bed is covered by sand, and all -- and that sand is coming from the upstream, both from the proposed inclusion in the designated drain, and then upstream of the existing designated drain. MS. RININGER: Would you anticipate that we would need to clean out any of the sand bars or whatever in Kelly Lake where we've now got that deposit? MR. BENNETT: It would be nice to take and create a sediment trap there and remove what's in there. It's a maintainable kind of a concept because it's easily accessible from the road. It's an easy way to manage the sediment which is flowing into Kelly Lake. So we can take out an existing delta which has kind of formed there right now, and that could be removed. MS. RININGER: But this work here would help minimize that sediment going down there. MR. BENNETT: Yeah, especially from the tributary to the south. Now the stuff to the -- from th upstream to, there's still some level, there's a lot of instability there, but removing the log jams and debris

26 will help it out, because that's deflecting causing a lot of erosion, so -- MS. RININGER: Okay. MR. HARRINGTON: Anything else? MR. GEERLINGS: Yeah, as a second thought. Has any areas along the drainage way been identified for increasing flood storage to reduce the volume going downstream from Kelly Lake? MR. BENNETT: Yeah. Looking at the south branch specifically was we looked at the potentials there. Unfortunately because it's -- it's so -- it's lowered itself down so far and separated itself from the floodplain, there's no easy way to get the water out of the watercourse there out into the floodplain. Once you get from th Avenue downstream, as you're working toward Kelly Lake, this is what it looks like. So there is huge flooding, you know, areas already flood. Now the potential to store more water up in this area exists. Now that's something that would have to be worked out, obviously, through the board and property owner issues, but this type of an area you could easily store more water into because it already does go into this area. MR. GEERLINGS: What percentage of the Kelly Lake drainage area comes from this watercourse, compared to from the Tibbie Lake area --

27 MR. BENNETT: From the -- MR. GEERLINGS: -- just so we can get -- MR. BENNETT: -- from the bridge, the tributary from the south or -- MR. GEERLINGS: Right. MS. RININGER: Uh-huh. MR. GEERLINGS: I mean if we're going to control twenty percent of the runoff to try to reduce the downstream volume, we're losing the battle. MR. BENNETT: Claire, can you -- MS. SCHWARTZ: Yeah. MR. BENNETT: -- address that? MS. SCHWARTZ: Yeah, what I can tell you, Paul, is that the drainage area from the Tibbie is larger than the contributing drainage area from this particularly south tributary into the Kelly Lake. Now the Tibbie though does have some mitigating effects. It does have Gilligan Lake, and it does have the marsh surrounding Gilligan Lake. But at this time we have not done a detailed hydrologic analysis of the entire watershed to calculate what those flow -- what that flow distribution might be. MR. GEERLINGS: Okay. MS. SCHWARTZ: But one might expect that you may see larger flows from the Tibbie even from this area, but yet this area may get there faster. It's because of

28 there's -- there is some pretty good topography. There is quite a bit of fall from the upper end of this southerly trib down to the Kelly, so I think that water probably goes through there pretty quickly, and it has a defined channel to do so. MR. BENNETT: Now I can add to that too, Paul. Relative to, like Claire said, we haven't done any hydraulic analysis and hydrologic analysis relative to each of these sub-basins within the watershed, but we have prepared a grant application to look at all of the hydrologic and hydraulic conditions throughout the whole watershed, and then identify specifically looking at storage areas, opportunity to reduce flows, and how to ultimately stabilize the entire system, not just these areas we've identified as problems, but also from Kelly Lake downstream. And then also as Claire mentioned, the Tibbie and its extension and what the ability is to store water within there. So there is a process in place or at least initiated to try to obtain some grant dollars to take a look at those types of issues which were not a part of this study. MS. SCHWARTZ: And Becky, I think you alluded to it earlier too, saying, you know, if we go this far up this branch, is that going to, you know -- MS. RININGER: Uh-huh.

29 MS. SCHWARTZ: -- affect it, will it take care of a problem. And, you know, would -- we did focus on the tributary that is flowing under th, because we needed to look at the bridge and we needed to size that. MS. RININGER: Uh-huh. MS. SCHWARTZ: So the focus of our effort today has been that, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some other areas upstream of the Kelly Lake, even upstream of th Street that, you know, we don't have a -- MS. RININGER: Uh-huh. MS. SCHWARTZ: -- we didn't do a detailed assessment of those areas. But those could all be included in this larger investigation for which we've applied for grant funds. MS. RININGER: Okay. MR. GEERLINGS: My concern being on the downstream, I'm representing those folks in Ottawa County at the downstream end there's a continuous sediment load that comes down to the mouth of the Kelly Lake Drain. Now I know that the snow mass of '0 and, and '0 and caused water tables to rise in the ground and much of the flood storage was taken up before the above-average rain falls of '0 and, which really showed us the weakness in the system, but I think that as we go forward this is one step of many that has to be taken to correct that, and I

30 just want to make sure that everybody is aware that this is not the end-all of the situation, and that ongoing work will be done. MR. HARRINGTON: Okay. Well if there's nothing further, we can open this up to public comment. I did have speaker cards on the back table, and if you'd like to speak, I'd appreciate it if you could fill out a speaker card. It helps not only us to keep organized, but it helps our court reporter with names, spellings, etcetera. So Tom, is there any chance you could collect any cards that there may be right now? MR. BENNETT: Absolutely. MR. HARRINGTON: Mr. Meshkin, as petitioner, would you like the lead us off? MR. AL MESHKIN: Sure. Al Meshkin, speaking for Laketown Township, the petitioner in this project. You all received notice in the mail for the project because there is the possibility of being assessed for part of the cost of the project. It is the intent of Laketown Township that you will not be individually assessed for the project. The township petitioned this, and we anticipate the cost of the project being divided between Laketown Township and Allegan County. I say anticipate because there was an asterisk by that is that the township's ability to pay for drain work comes 0

31 from our two mills of special voted which gets renewed every two years for the fire department, for roads, bike paths and drains. That's up for renewal again in August. That's been around for forty or fifty years, typically passes by a three to one vote, so it's fairly secure, but the intent for Laketown is to not have the drain commissioner assess you individually for this work. It's a project that Laketown recognizes needs to be taken care of, and we do expect to pay for that from those funds. MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you, sir. The first speaker is Nick Weeber. MR. NICK WEEBER: My name is Nick Weeber, I live at Oak Ridge subdivision, and I want to first of all say thank you for addressing this issue. I attended the first meeting, and I've heard a couple of comments here today, and I apologize for coming late. It seems like the emphasis is on th Street project, is that kind of where we're at? Did I hear that right? I mean that's kind of what we're addressing right now. And then this gentleman is talking about this is just the first stage in where we're going. The comment that sticks in my mind from the last meeting is we need to look at this thing wholistically, and I'm hoping that this is not a Band-aid. And when I hear, well, there's other things coming down the road, I want to know if we're really Band-aiding this 1

32 issue, or if we're really addressing the overall issue. That's my question. MR. HARRINGTON: Tom might be happy to speak to that. MR. BENNETT: Yeah. MR. HARRINGTON: As Paul said, yes this is a first step, and what Fishbeck had identified as major source of sediment input. The sediment input is what's causing instabilities farther downstream. Tom also mentioned that we are pursuing a coastal zone management grant to take the wholistic look at the entire watershed. So we're not letting that go at this point. As a matter of fact, that's one of the questions we're considering today is whether to proceed with a grant. Fishbeck has already completed the application. It's just a matter of submitting it, so I hope that answers your question. MR. NICK WEEBER: Yes, I -- yup. MR. HARRINGTON: Next speaker is Herb Eldean. MR. HERB ELDEAN: Hi, I'm Herb Eldean, I represent the Eldean interest in Macatawa, which would be in Ottawa County. We are the recipients of all the water that you send. All of it goes through our property. And we understood in the past that before anything was going to be done, you are going to do this complete study of the drain before any improvements, which would bring in more

33 water into the drain, hence more water through our property. When you talk about the floodplains, everything else, once those fill up, nd Street becomes the dam, and then it overflows and floods us. Our uninsured costs from the last floods were more than your projection for th Street. Now I don't know if any of you were there, but these are pictures which you can all look at which show the amount of water. We had water over the knees in the middle of the road on South Shore Drive. We had sediment that we had to clean up in the yard capacity range. And by your making improvements without looking at the total picture, all you're doing is compounding the problem that we have. Thank you. MR. HARRINGTON: Are there any other people who would like to speak? I don't currently have any cards. (Handed card.) Thank you. Kay Litts. MS. KAY LITTS: My name is Kay Litts, and I also live in Oak Ridge Estates, which is right at the end of the area that you were looking at, it's where the river or the stream touches on th Street. And so -- MR. BENNETT: Is that the south branch or the -- MR. GEERLINGS: No. MS. KAY LITTS: No, it's here.

34 MR. GEERLINGS: The end of the -- MS. RININGER: It's between here, right here. MR. GEERLINGS: -- existing -- MR. BENNETT: Got it. Okay. MS. KAY LITTS: So I don't -- I don't know where that falls, if it falls in the line of where you're looking at or outside the line. I didn't hear you address just exactly how far you would be looking at cleaning up debris and taking care of that kind of stuff. Just north of our street, Oak Ridge, in the stream there are things that make all of our homeowners very nervous. There's metal, sheet metal that's along the, you know, kind of holding up their embankment and stuff, and we have visions of if we have another storm, those pieces of sheet metal moving downstream and plugging up our culvert, and then our road is gone. And so I guess my question is did you consider that at all? Is that in your realm of fixes with this fix or -- MR. BENNETT: Yeah, we were going up to th, to the existing, yup. And then we're going to do debris removals and obstructions to flow and things that have potential to obstruct or impact flows and stability of the watercourse, so we'll be looking at those particular activities. MS. KAY LITTS: So let me just clarify.

35 MR. BENNETT: Uh-huh. MS. KAY LITTS: Oakridge Drive, and just that short, I don't know, hundred yards or whatever beyond north of Oakridge Drive -- MR. BENNETT: Yeah, it will go -- MS. KAY LITTS: -- to where it comes -- MR. BENNETT: Yup, right up to th. MS. KAY LITTS: Okay. MR. BENNETT: Yup. MR. HARRINGTON: Anyone else? Mr. Eldean, I do appreciate your pictures, and that is something that this board has been wrestling with as to how do we tackle this and deal with all of the issues on the drain, and I'm certain that both commissioners will continue to wrestle with that. MR. GEERLINGS: As I said, the excessive snow of '0/'0, '0 and '0, the March rain and snow melt of '0, the June th rain event, December rain event after two days of degree weather and having over two feet of snow on the ground Christmas Day really filled up all of the holding area, if you will, the floodplain, the groundwater was elevated, and then the storm of June '0 was a real killer because there was absolutely no infiltration in any of the watercourse or any of the watershed area, because it was already filled with the preexisting storm moisture that

36 came. So it was really, really exacerbated in what the effect was downstream. We looked at different options. One I have pushed for very strongly is an extra outlet down the corridor of what would be th Avenue out to Lake Michigan, but that takes the Corp. of Engineers and EPA authorization, and that will take time, but I encourage this board to continue looking at that. If we had low flow to provide riparian rights for the Kelly Lake downstream to Macatawa, and had a high flow outlet for those flows that exceeded what the critical dune can withstand downstream of th Ave, I think it would be a great improvement for the environment and for the quality of life of everyone in the area. Now if we can convince the Corp. of Engineers and the EPA of that, that remains to be seen. MR. HARRINGTON: But again, those are things that Fishbeck is going to -- MR. GEERLINGS: Right. That's -- MR. HARRINGTON: -- investigate under this grant. MS. RININGER: Uh-huh. MR. HARRINGTON: So -- MR. GEERLINGS: Now basically though we are trying to address the entire issue of the watershed without breaking the bank in any one year. MR. HERB ELDEAN: It's all right to break ours.

37 MR. GEERLINGS: Pardon? MR. HERB ELDEAN: I said it's all right to break ours, as the pictures show you. MR. GEERLINGS: Well, I don't believe we are saying it's all right to break yours, but you have gained your livelihood from the water, and you need to be on the water, and that is sort of tied with it. You need to accept the good and the bad with what you chose to do with your life, and a lot of people would like to -- MR. HERB ELDEAN: Now let's not -- let's not -- MR. GEERLINGS: -- be doing as well as you. MR. HERB ELDEAN: -- get into semantics here. Let's not be talking about what my business is and where it's located. You're the drain commissioner, and you've been taking all of these developments into the existing drain without adding to the outflow capacity, so you've been backing it up. And I don't just say you, yourself, the lady from Allegan is in the same boat. You just keep putting water in without increasing the outflow. MR. GEERLINGS: And -- yeah. We can't really predict what nature will do, but the fact is we are having -- we have just experienced a wetter than average period of time from 0 until, and we have seen the results. If you look at the overall footprint of the Kelly Lake Drain, I don't believe that the development, the

38 housing developments or any other development has had as much impact on it as weather change itself. We act to weather change as a reactionary, not maybe it will get worse, so we're going to spend your money without knowing. MR. HARRINGTON: Anyone else like an opportunity to speak? Gentleman in the back. MR. ED STIELSTRA: Thank you. Ed Stielstra, th Avenue, 0. I also serve on the township board in Laketown. I appreciate your concerns for the flooding that takes place at the outlet into Lake Mac. I do believe, and I would ask you for a more professional response than I can give, but I think from what I heard, the action you propose for upstream of th will slow the entire system down to some degree with the initial intent of curtailing erosion and so on. But I think the effect, the benefit will be felt throughout the system. Am I too optimistic in saying that? MR. BENNETT: Yeah. This project really is not going to alter the flows that presently go down through there. Really all we're proposing to do is pretty much take care of obstructions. Those might back up little amounts of water. So really what we're proposing to do is not going to really have any major effect. And like Claire

39 said, it's just a small part of the watershed too. So we're not adding any extra storage throughout the system. So it's really, you're not going to see any marked difference between before and after. MR. ED STIELSTRA: Well then that leads me to my second question. Should we either now, as part of this project or in the relatively near future, look at further retention? MR. BENNETT: Yeah, that's actually, we mentioned that drain application which we've prepared -- MR. ED STIELSTRA: Okay, that's -- MR. BENNETT: -- would look specifically at that -- at that concept because we realize that that is something that ought to be looked at. So that's what that proposal -- MR. ED STIELSTRA: Okay. MR. BENNETT: -- is actually going to do. MR. ED STIELSTRA: And last comment would just be that the situation on th was not planned, obviously, did happen between whatever last discussion Mr. Eldean had with you and this hearing, so I think that needs to be addressed regardless of any other part of the system. Thank you. MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you. MR. HERB ELDEAN: I would just like to say I'm

40 not opposed to fixing th and putting in the culvert. I wanted my remarks to make sure that you look at the overall drain system. MR. HARRINGTON: Bonnie, did you catch all that? THE COURT REPORTER: (Nodded head, no verbal response.) MR. HARRINGTON: Okay. Anyone else? If not, we'll go ahead and end public comment. Becky, as the majority shareholder, I'll give you first opportunity. MS. RININGER: I've been drain commissioner now for eight years, worked in the office a lot more years than that, but Kelly Lake has always had some issues. It's a vulnerable stream system just because of the sand dunes and the district and the relief that's -- the topography in the district. I know that there are serious problems with the whole system, and the board knows that. However, we can't address them all at one time. When Laketown Township decided to file the petition, we discussed the needs of the whole drain, and we realized that, for lack of better phrase, we can't break the bank, but perhaps we can start fixing small things while trying to do a study to determine what options do we have to fix the bigger things. So at this point I see the need to determine this petition necessary, to try to 0

41 stabilize the upper end, and also to go ahead and apply for this coastal zone management grant to see what our options are to basically retain that water whether we end up taking it somewhere else. I know there's issues on the downstream end, I really do, but I'm not certain that the work we're going to be doing under this petition would make that worse. This water is already coming to you. We're not going to basically make it flow any faster between the downstream end and the work we're doing. We have Kelly Lake, which is kind of like the big basin that it runs into, and it's held and it's released, so I really feel that we need to determine this petition necessary and fix this problem and then proceed with this grant application. MR. HARRINGTON: Okay. Mr. Geerlings. MR. GEERLINGS: Well in water management everything is timing. We in Ottawa County look to put the greatest detention in the upper third of the watershed, a little less detention in the middle, and the lower third we want conveyance so it's gone by the time the water from the upper watershed gets there. This particular project that is being targeted here is sort of in the middle of the watershed. I believe that by creating a better watercourse, removing the obstructions, and allowing that water to get from the east side of th to Kelly Lake, and then in the downstream channel quicker, it will probably 1

42 reduce the peak flows in the downstream area. But as soon as I say that, we'll get a five hour storm so that the water from this area is still there when the upstream gets there. But overall I think it's moving in the right direction. I think we have to fix what we know is broke, and continue to move forward and encourage any detention or flood storage in the upper area farther south of this to store floodwater and to retain or detain the flows as much as we can. MR. HARRINGTON: Okay. Tom, I did have one question before we let you off the hook. Given the instabilities in the areas that we're working on, and what seems to be stable from the pictures downstream, do you think we're going to control most of the erosion that's happening right now and stop the inputs of sediment downstream? MR. BENNETT: We're going to control a portion of it, and that's to those great controls, and then adding -- removing debris, so we'll be addressing some of it, but portions of the channel, especially on the existing Kelly Lake Intercounty Drain, the channel is unstable, and we're not really addressing a lot of the stability within there. We're taking care of a lot of the blockages which are causing some instabilities, but the channel is pretty deep, it's pretty over-wide, so there's still going to be