(La Porte, IN) - Ground once farmed in La Porte is now a wetlands, but a solution aimed at restoring the land is going to be examined.

 

Louie Spear owns some of the flooded property along Boyd Boulevard south of Indiana 2 on the city’s east side.  Spear said a lot of industrial and commercial growth in that area over the years greatly increased the amount of storm water running onto the land because existing drains from over a century ago are too small now to get rid of all that extra storm run-off fast enough.

 

Spear went before the La Porte County Drainage Board this week asking for an updated drainage system that can adequately handle current storm water volumes to restore that ground.  He asked for an engineer to be hired as a first step toward updating the system.

 

“They take every bit of the hydraulic data and they design the system based upon what the city is dumping in there,” he said.

 

Drainage Board President Jeff Mitzner promised to take a look at what needs to be done.

 

“We know that there’s an issue here and we’re going to try and resolve the issue,” he said.

 

Mitzner said a solution could cost hundreds of thousands or even more than a million dollars.  He said he will try and find a previous study of the matter and review it before the issue is addressed again at the next drainage board meeting in March.