CROTHERSVILLE
Relief could be in sight for Crothersville residents in the area of one of the town’s lift stations.
In recent years, people living near the Seymour Road lift station on the north side of town have experienced drainage and flooding issues around their homes after heavy rain events.
To help alleviate those problems, the town is applying for a grant from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to replace the lift station and also make drainage and force main improvements in the area.
If the town receives the $550,000 grant, it would have to provide a local match of $144,272, which likely would be derived from the water utility and sewer utility operating funds.
Trena Carter with Administrative Resources association, the town’s grant writer, said if the cost of the project comes in lower, the local match would be lower. If it comes in higher, the match would be a little more.
Carter is asking residents to help by submitting letters and photos to include with the grant application.
She said they could write a letter explaining what has happened to their property that makes them feel this project is necessary.
Crothersville Town Council member Bob Lyttle, who lives in that area, said he has talked with some neighbors who feel the project needs to be done, and Carter encouraged those people to write letters.
Council President Danieta Foster submitted recent flooding photos from that area, but more photos could be sent to Carter.
Letters and photos need to be emailed to [email protected] within the next couple of weeks. The application deadline is Feb. 9, and Carter will be getting all of the necessary items together before that time.
A second public hearing about the grant was conducted during a recent town council meeting. Sometime before that, a couple of council members attended a site visit with OCRA officials.
Mason Boicourt, the town’s wastewater superintendent, said the lift station is one of three in Crothersville.
Another one is along Moore Street east of town, and the other one is along U.S. 31 south of town.
Both of them are less than 15 years old, but the one on Seymour Road was installed in the 1960s.
It was a pneumatic lift station years ago until switching to submersible in the early 2000s, Boicourt said.
They experience periodic trouble with the lift station, and over time, they have had a lot of problems with various items clogging it up.
“We have to pull them a lot,” Boicourt said. “It has no backup power. It doesn’t really have a good alarm system attached to it. The force main, we’re not sure, but we think maybe it’s leaking a little bit, as well. Bypass pumping capabilities, we use a gas pump.
Just different things like that that IDEM (Indiana Department of Environmental Management) doesn’t necessarily require, but they like to see if you’re doing improvements.”
Also, the actual station itself, the wet well, is deteriorating.
“The ladder that you can provide access down there, if you step on it, it will just deteriorate,” Boicourt said.
The town has not experienced any major problems with the other two lift stations, he said.
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Crothersville residents near the Seymour Road lift station on the north end of town who have experienced drainage or flooding issues may email letters and photos to [email protected] within the next couple of weeks.
They will be included with a grant application. The town is applying for a grant from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to replace the lift station and also make drainage and force main improvements in the area.
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