The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Carvana ‘won’t add to flooding’
Regulators say car dealer, parking lot handle normal rain, not add to Martins Run flooding
Paving over an orchard to build Lorain County’s newest huge parking lot next to a creek prone to flooding sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Just add rainwater.
But area regulators say during normal rainfall, the new Carvana distribution center will not add to the water in Martins
Run.
The waterway runs north of the site and roughly northwest to Lake Erie, serving as a key storm drain for Lorain’s near west side.
The new construction includes a retention basin and changes to the creek.
They will be built so during normal rain, the amount of rain water draining off Carvana and into Martins Run, will be no more than when the land was a farm. The new features won’t do much to prevent Martins Run from flooding during heavy rains.
But the city of Lorain Engineering Department continues working on a plan for that.
The new Carvana center, 6161 Middle Ridge Road, sits on 104.99 acres, the former Spiegelberg Orchard in Elyria Township.
It wi l l have a 189,865-square-foot building and enough pavement to create a total of 10,168 parking spaces, according to plans.
The construction blueprints show the site’s northern boundary is the Dellefield Main Ditch of Martins Run.
When an area with grass and trees gets covered with hard surfaces, such as rooftops and concrete and asphalt, it becomes easy to imagine that rainwater falling down will run off much faster than it did before, said Kate Golden, stormwater manager in Lorain’s City Engineering Department.
That’s exactly what is going to happen, Golden said.
Because the water has to go somewhere, that might cause worries about flooding for residents downstream — and those are valid concerns, said Golden and Kurt Princic, chief of the Northeast District Office of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
But not all the water will go into Martins Run.
Plans in place
For comparison, the Carvana site is almost four times the size of the 28-acre Meijer property at 5350 Leavitt Road in Lorain.
That store was another highly anticipated project in the last few years, Golden said.
In Ohio, any construction activities that disturb more than one acre must get a construction stormwater general permit.
Part of that is establishing a stormwater pollution prevention plan, abbreviated SWP3, Princic said.
That plan includes engineering controls and management for drainage during construction and afterward.
“We’re trying to protect downstream properties from any flooding and the residents, they’re concerns are very valid,” Princic said.
The plan is one of a dozen documents the Ohio EPA has posted as part of its online public record center.
The Lorain County Stormwater Management District has taken the lead on reviewing the plan and enforcing it, Princic said.
In the district
The Lorain County Storm Water Management District is a partnership with local governments of Lorain County, 18 townships, the city of Oberlin and the village of South Amherst.
They joined to find ways to handle stormwater drainage and flooding problems around the county.
When county officials began speaking to Carvana’s leaders about the site, the local officials let them know the business would be in the county’s stormwater district, said Don Romancak, community development director for the Lorain County Commission.
They also warned Carvana’s planners that Martins Run is something to be careful of, Romancak said.
In August, Todd A. Ward, of Carvana, agreed to a 17page stormwater management plan.
Along with thousands of cars, the site will keep an existing pond and add a retention basin to hold rain, according to the plan.
The Dellefield Main Ditch of Martins Run banks will be graded to widen the waterway, which increases its capacity, Romancak said.
“The stream itself will be able to hold more water back there, and then the detention basin is designed to hold back a significant amount of water,” he said.
A Carvana spokeswoman declined to comment on the drainage issues.
But project blueprints include pages dedicated to drainage and Romancak said the company has been responsive to any concerns on the site.
Chances for floods
Carvana’s retention ponds and drainage plans will not affect how much rain flows into Martins Run from Lorain’s neighborhoods downstream, Golden and Romancak said.
That means there still is potential for water in Martins Run to flood Tower Boulevard in Lorain, especially during sudden, heavy, rainfall.
The city Engineering Department aims to create an upstream retention area that would help the areas downstream.
In May, 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, roughly across the street from the Carvana site.
The land would be used for a new wetland and stream restoration project that could hold water during storms, the officials said.
More capacity for water would lessen the flow downstream — and the flooding along Martins Run, according to plans.
City staff are waiting for word on possible state funding to help pay for the project, Golden said.