Article on BPNA meeting with CBU's Pat Murphy and Phil Peden

[Anne H.]

Below is the full text of the article which will appear in the June
issue of BPNA Neighborhood News, covering the May meeting with the
director of the water utility and a CBU engineer. This article details
the three options presented for Improving stormwater drainage. The CBU
wants the neighborhood's input on which option to implement.

Please note that for the sake of estimating costs, each option makes
specific planning assumptions--about street width, for example, or
what is or is not included in the estimate (curbs, storm drains, sewer
pipe, etc.) You can comment on the assumption as well as on the option
as a whole. If you disagree with an assumption--for example, if you
like Option 2 but think that the north-south streets should have one
one-way drive lane and one parking lane instead of two drive lanes and
one parking lane--feel free to indicate that.

Without further ado, here is the article.

Where does the water go?

The Bryan Park neighborhood sits in a basin. When it rains, water
drains through the basin from the east, north and south, in large part
through the Davis St. ditch. Thus Bryan Park neighbors were quick to
notice an article in the Herald Times on April 28, stating that an
unremarkable rain a month earlier “caused 16,050 gallons of raw sewage
and water to spew from a sanitary sewer manhole just west of the
intersection of Walnut and Davis streets, eventually trickling into
Clear Creek.”

We interviewed Pat Murphy, Director of City of Bloomington Utilities
(CBU), to gain perspective on what this means for the neighborhood.
Murphy said, “There has been no SSO [sanitary sewer overflow] actually
in the neighborhood; a manhole cover blew off on the other side of
Walnut. There’s an emergency sump pump built-in to mitigate the
problem. It takes a fairly substantial rain to cause an overflow. The
city system does not have combined sewers and storm drains, so storm
water and wastewater do not normally mix.”

As the HT reports, though, the same spot just west of Walnut and Davis
has experienced more SSO events over the last five years than any
other city location. Murphy says, “Storm drains and curbs in the Bryan
Park area might help [prevent overflows]. The department has talked
about it; it takes a lot of money, probably beyond our means right
now. My real dilemma is that I don’t have the budget—$2-3 million just
to put in storm drains.” The CBU is funded entirely by ratepayers—you
and me paying our water bills—and not from the taxes that we also
pay.

Murphy graciously agreed to address the monthly BPNA meeting on May 24
to provide more information on the utility’s water management plans as
they affect the neighborhood.

Progress and remaining problems

Stormwater management is a work in progress. CBU has already reduced
the number of “chronic” SSO points from 16 to 6 over the last five
years, as reported in the HT. Utilities Engineer Phil Peden, who
accompanied Murphy to the meeting, described some of the ways that
reduction was achieved.

Problem areas still on the utility’s view screen include South Arden,
Bryan Park, Southdowns, and 1st St. from Fairview to College. An
initial plan drawn up in 2002 proposed building curbs and storm
drains. At the urging of the Indiana Department of Environmental
Management (IDEM), CBU is looking to do greener, more cost-effective
alternatives where possible. IDEM regulations promote passive
filtration of stormwater run-off (like the Bryan Park creek
plantings). Plants clean the water before it drains into creeks and
lakes, and ultimately into the drinking water supply.

At the request of Isabel Piedmont-Smith, our City Council
Representative and president of the City Council, CBU engineer Phil
Peden recently designed a test project for a drainage system in our
neighborhood. The project area includes the section of Dunn St. from
Dodds to Davis and a half block east and west of Dunn on the side
streets in this stretch. Whatever is done in this test project could
be mirrored on Palmer, Grant and the side streets to complete the
grid.

While all these north-south streets, down to their outlet in the Davis
St. ditch, have similar stormwater issues, Dunn St. is recognized as a
main trouble spot for run-off. One Dunn St. resident, Jack Horton, has
a row of sand bags permanently stretched across the front of his
property; his house has suffered repeated flooding.

Three possible solutions

As Murphy and Peden explained at the May 24 meeting, there are three
ways to approach the test project.

Option 1: Construct a sanitary sewer, sidewalk and curb, and storm
sewer and drains with an 18’ paved roadway and no on-street parking.
Based on a study the CBU commissioned in 2003, this would have cost
$1.41 million then; it would cost approximately $1.62 million now.
The study included improvements along Dunn, Palmer, Grant (from Davis
to Dodds) and Dixie (from Grant to Henderson).

Option 2: Construct curb, storm sewer and drains with 20’ paved
roadway and 8’ paved on-street parking area (on one side). The
materials cost would be approximately $80,000 for the test project.
The estimate does not include cost of labor, equipment, relocation of
existing sanitary sewer or water mains.

Option 3: Construct drainage ditches where the water would flow
through swales (as it does along the west side of Bryan Park) and
through culverts under driveways. The cost for this option would be
approximately 20% of Option 2. These costs might have to be shared
between the utility and the property owner, Murphy and Peden explain,
“because the driveway culverts are owned and maintained by the
homeowner (and their driveways). The [property owner’s] cost share
responsibility would most likely be the purchase of the material for
the pipe and possibly the driveway materials. Our contribution would
be the labor, equipment, and installation. It is not clear at this
time whether we would require cost sharing with this option.”

Parking and drive lanes

Option 1 was based on providing for an 18’ drive lane with sidewalks
but no parking lane. Option 2 includes a parking lane. Option 3
essentially recreates a drainage system with grass-lined swales that
used to exist along these streets; ironically, the swale was
eliminated to provide on-street parking.

Whichever option is implemented for the test project must take into
account two realities: the availability of on-street parking and the
narrowness of the streets. Parking is a major issue because people
going to events in Bryan Park frequently park along the nearby
streets. Streets must be wide enough for fire engines, ambulances,
and garbage trucks to get through past parked cars.

In core neighborhoods like this, city code specifies a width of 10’
for a drive lane (or 20’ for two-way streets) and 8’ for a parking
lane. This is the case whether sidewalks or swales are constructed.
Swales are somewhat wider than sidewalks (3’-5’ wide and 18” deep),
with a 2’ shoulder between the paved drive lane and the swale.

Peden said that, besides being less expensive, a swale-based drainage
system slows and filters running water, reducing the load on the
stormwater system system and improving water quality. The disadvantage
is that swales have to be maintained more frequently than storm
drains, Peden said, because of erosion when cars park in and along the
swale.

According to Peden, “Though they have a shorter lifespan (20-30
years), swales are much cheaper to maintain [than the alternatives].
Our major costs are materials based; replacing a section of pipe,
roadway, and curb in the future is much more expensive than excavating
a new ditch, requiring only seed and straw for materials. Not to
mention the pipe is a depreciating asset and although it may last 100
years, when that 100 years is up it might cost 10 times the amount it
did originally, and could actually pose more of a problem for that
neighborhood then if they had stuck with roadside ditches.”

In closing, Pat Murphy said, “I don’t want to make promises I can’t
keep. I don’t have the magic bullet of money to solve this problem. I
don’t have $2-3 million in my budget for [area-wide storm drains]. I
would have to get a bond issue for that; the CBU board would have to
approve it. We have talked about doing a two block test project, and
that is the most I can commit to.”

Neighborhood input wanted

The drainage issue is complicated and the three options provoked a lot
of discussion and controversy, which was not complete at the end of
the meeting. Peden indicated that the utility wanted to know which
option the neighborhood favored. BPNA president Mary Miller proposed
and the members in attendance agreed that it was premature to choose
one option over the other. “We need some time to educate ourselves
about the issues and think about the implications of the options
presented, and to discuss them with more of the neighbors,” she said.

As a first step in continuing the discussion, Miller (who is the BPNA
webmaster as well as president) created a new Google group. In an
email to the membership, she noted, “This will be an opt-in group, so
you'll need to join in order to participate. Unlike our BPNA blog,
this group is open for members to add content directly.” The
discussion is already underway there, and will be continued in monthly
BPNA meetings.

To join, go to http://groups.google.com/group/bpna-stormwater-working-group
and follow the directions. If you have any problems signing up, email
mpm_m...@yahoo.com.