Project to control flooding to begin

Two Town Ditch work to include improvements at city’s new park

The culmination of decades of planning are soon to be realized in the city of Mentor.

City Council recently authorized awarding the Two Town Ditch restoration improvement project, between Jeremy Drive and Bellflower Road. It consists of restoring and creating about 3,500 feet of existing and new stream channel, as well as re-establishing, enhancing and preserving nearly 19 acres of wetlands.

It also will provide additional stormwater management in the Two Town watershed. By restoring and supplementing the floodplain, peak downstream flows will be decreased by up to 80 percent during a 25-year storm event, Mentor Engineer Dave Swiger said.

“This will reduce inflow and infiltration issues into sanitary sewers, reduce basement flooding and reduce flood elevations by as much as 4 feet downstream of the project,” he said.

A similar project was envisioned in the 1980s, when there was a proposal for a detention facility on Lost Nation Airport property, City Manager Ken Filipiak said. In 2011, Mentor officials announced a lease-purchase agreement with school officials that would allow for a detention basin identified in a 1991 watershed study.

It was anticipated that the basin would be able to capture as much as 35 percent of stormwater downstream, at the Mentor-Willoughby border, as well as 80 percent upstream.

The two communities funded a joint analysis of the shared watershed in 2013.

“This will be meaningful, and it will be meaningful for the city of Willoughby as well,” Filipiak said. “They’re helping us with some downstream

improvements on Ward Creek, so it’s a good regional project, not just for the citizens of Mentor.”

“Between the two, it should make a big floodcontrol difference,” added Ward 3 Councilman Bruce Landeg, an engineer for Lake County who worked on the project for years as the ward representative.

The overall completion date is Sept. 29, 2018, but

the stormwater detention aspect is to be functional by late April.

The cost is roughly $4.6 million and includes the first phase of Springbrook Gardens Park improvements.

That project — on Heisley Road — involves excavation and embankment of onsite material as well as offsite fill brought in from the Two Town project to develop

mounding for prairie lands.

In addition, it includes adding roadway and parking areas with 276 spaces, 2 miles of asphalt paths, stream culverts, pond and ditch enhancements, utilities for future restrooms and a boardwalk along the pond.

Mark Haynes Construction of Norwalk won the bid, which was nearly $1 million below the construction estimate.

Ward 1 Councilman Sean Blake expressed concern about the mess that may be left behind as truckloads of dirt are conveyed between the ditch and park.

“We had a little bit of an issue with materials being left on Heisley, material coming over from Garfield Park,” he said, referring to the Garfield Park pond dredging. “So do we know how many truck trips to expect, and is a part of this contract (specifying) cleanup or control of dirt materials?”

Swiger confirmed that the contractor is responsible to keep the delivery route swept.

“We’ve got about 90,000 cubic yards of material that need to be moved,” Swiger said.

“I would say, as a minimum, we’ll see 9,000 truckloads of material. So it will be a challenge, but we’ll work closely with the contractor.”

The truck route is expected to be mainly along Route 2.