NEW PALESTINE — New Palestine officials hope they can finally resolve a nagging drainage issue that has plagued them and at least 15 homeowners over the past six years.
After multiple attempts and thousands of dollars spent to repair the problem, which involves buried storm water drainage lines, the town has decided to spend as much as $140,000 on the work, which will include surveys, significant excavation and the replacement of sidewalks.
Town manager Jim Robinson noted the town started hearing complaints from neighbors in the Cedar Creek neighborhood in 2015. Property on both sides of Cedar Creek Place was subsiding around buried pipes.
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“There was no gravel installed around the pipe when it was first installed and so we started getting sinkholes,” Robinson said.
While the town didn’t do the original drainage pipe work, the issue became their problem since the builders of the subdivision have died.
In August 2015, the town approved spending $21,000 to try to repair the problem. Town manager Dave Book hired Fisk Excavating, which dug up a section of the pipe where the ground had collapsed and repaired it. The town then paid an additional $1,232 in August 2017 for a smaller repair; and yet another $14,277 in August 2019 for the same type of issue.
When another hole opened recently on the north side of the street in a neighbor’s back yard, Robinson, who took over as town manager when Book was fired earlier this year, said he’d seen enough.
Robinson decided the town should replace the whole pipe, about 800 feet long, on both the north and south sides of Cedar Creek Place. His goal is to get the job done correctly for once and for all.
“We spent 25 percent of the new total bid for this project, which is $116,000, just on repairs that haven’t addressed the whole issue,” Robinson said. “We cannot keep revisiting this.”
Petry Excavating will handle the new work. Its bid of $116,000 was recently approved by the town council, which selected them over two other bidders.
Work on the north side of the street is expected to start sometime during the week of May 18. Work should take a couple of weeks to complete, Robinson said.
Property owners, meanwhile, have no idea when or where another sinkhole could open.
Lelia and Charles Miller built their home in 2004. They have a sinkhole within a few feet of their property line. Up until now, the issue hasn’t really affected them, but they’re glad to see the town finally invest in proper repairs.
The Millers’ neighbor across the street, Chuck Ward, will see the work happen just a few feet from his yard barn on the south side of the street. He’s hoping this will be the last time town officials have to dig up the area and work on the pipe in the neighborhood, which is off County Road 500W south of County Road 300S.
“I want to get it done right and get it out of my hair,” Ward said. “The last time they dug it up, they just threw all the dirt in the yard and we weren’t aware of anything they were going to do.”
Robinson plans to change that this time around. He and town officials hoped to drop off letters to affected residents as well as check out the work site daily once construction gets under way to make sure the pipe is installed and secured properly.
“What’s sad is when they built this subdivision had they put another $15,000 into gravel to go around the pipe, we’d never be dealing with this issue,” Robinson said.
