City moves to buy land for flood control

A new stormwater retention area could help control the flooding along Martins Run in Lorain during future heavy rainfall.

On May 18, Lorain City Council voted 11-0 for an option to buy about 18.52 acres of land from Eschtruth Investment Co. LLC.

The parcels sit south of Cooper Foster Park Road, between Baldwin Boulevard east to Broadway.

The land would be used for a new wetland and stream restoration project that could hold water during storms.

More capacity for water would lessen the flooding along Martins Run, according to plans.

Heavy rains May 15 prompted another round of neighborhood flooding around the city.

Councilwoman-at-Large Mary Springowski, Ward 4 Councilman Greg Argenti and Ward 8 Councilman Joshua Thornsberry all described the effects.

“We’ve got to do something,” Springowski said. “We cannot keep letting our residents get their property destroyed.

“I have had people calling me crying because their basements have flooded for the sixth or seventh time.”

Argenti called the move a critical first step, with flooding worse now than in 2014.

He referred to the May 12, 2014, storm that dumped rain across the region and created flash flooding in Lorain and other communities.

“It’s getting redundant,” Argenti said. “The same people are flooding three, four, five, six times.”

The project has been on the drawing board for several years; the current price estimate is $755,000 for the land and $3 million to build the wetlands there.

Capture the water

If purchased, the land would become a new wetlands complex that captures water flowing into Lorain during sudden storms.

By holding the water, it would reduce the flow between the areas around Oberlin Avenue and West 35th Street.

That is where residents have the most complaints about water levels rising over the culverts that allow the streets to cross over Martins Run, said Kate Golden storm water manager in Lorain’s city Engineering Department.

“The problem is, when we get large storm bursts all at once, there’s just not enough capacity in the system,” Golden said. “There’s just too much water in the system for the built environment.

“There’s more water than can be managed in the channel itself.”

She added she watched the Council meeting by livestream.

City staff are sensitive to the physical and emotional toll that residents feel due to the floods, Golden said.

Storm sewers are designed to handle 10-year storms, but residents see Martins Run flood even during two-year events when the rain falls instantaneously, she said.

The waterway does not usually flood when rain falls steadily, but gently, even over a full day, Golden said.

Other communities also face problems during sudden storms that dump several inches of rain in a matter of hours.

“That’s a flash flooding issue, that’s not just a city of Lorain issue,” Golden said.

Plans on paper

The project has been in conceptual form since about 2006, and in the last four to five years, city workers began examining where a stormwater retention complex could go, Golden said.

In the last 2 ½ years, city staff and consultants have examined where such a structure could be built and if it would work, she said.

By June, the city will have enough plans and permits that “it will be theoretically constructable,” Golden said.

But now, local, state and federal officials are looking for the best ways to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 assistance comes with a price tag, so Golden predicted environmental project grant money would dry up.

“My goal would be to get boots on the ground prior to the end of this year,” Golden said. “I don’t know how that’s going to work out with funding timelines.” The project cost is based on time and equipment needed to move earth to recreate a stream channel within a farm field.

“The volume of material that is going to be removed is massive,” Golden said. “That’s going to come with a lot of cost.”

The plans require removal of 75,000 cubic yards of dirt, she said.

Using an average of 12 cubic yards of material per dump truck, the project would require 6,250 trucks to remove the material.

The grading and depth will be critical, so the water fills the site, then flows out, Golden said.

Improvement problems

Martins Run generally is a channelized ditch running through central and west Lorain, with houses on both sides of it.

Based on current standards, the city likely would not allow construction of new homes so close to the channel, Golden said.

But the houses along the stream have been there for decades, she said, and much of the waterway generally is considered privately owned by abutting property owners.

“We see flooding in those areas because the capacity of that waterway is limited, and it’s limited to a very small ditch, effectively,” Golden said. “And the management of that is complicated by the fact that it’s all private property with limited access.”

State and federal environmental regulators have suggested a three-phase approach, Thornsberry said.

The city already has cleared out debris that blocks the flow of water through Martins Run, he said.

Adding the retention basis would be a second phase, Thornsberry said.

A third phase is to dredge and widen the channel, he said, a move that Springowski supported.

Widening and deepening Martins Run would be an incredible feat because the city would have to deal with hundreds of property owners, Golden said.

With that difficulty, a better solution is to capture the draining stormwater as if flows into the city, she said.