North Central Storm Water project is nearing completion.  All construction activities are complete and the retention ponds are on line and working. A few minor items are still being taken care of by the contractor at this time.  Final completion of the project is expected within the next few months.  Residents within the project extents have noticed a decrease in sump pump activity ground and storm water is leaving project area faster. This project has received awards two  awards this past winter for the innovative methods used to correct flooding problems in these neighborhoods, the American Consulting Engineers Council  in the Special Projects category for Engineering Achievement and the 1000 Friends of Iowa for Stormwater Mitigation in their Civic Category.

Update of the construction progress on the North Central Stormwater Improvement Project.

Over the winter the balance of the storm water pipe was installed along the non-residential areas of the project.  Yet to be completed is the installation of storm water pipe along Seneca Street and Spooner Street north of E. 10th Street.

The contractor performing this work has started to install the storm sewer piping along Seneca Street and Spooner Street.  During this period Seneca Street and Spooner Street will be closed to thru traffic.  Residents affected will be able to access their properties from either 12th Street or 10th Street.  Driveway access will be limited for homeowners directly adjacent to the sewer work.

The contractor who will be seeding along the project corridor is scheduled to start his work around April 25th.  The seeding work will take approximately 2 weeks to complete.

Work Has Started on the North Central Storm Water Project!

Work on the project began a couple weeks ago when workers cleared trees from an area to make room for dirt removed during the digging of regional ponds. The cleared area can be seen in the photo below.

Once full, this truck will carry dirt to the ditch shown above. Two trucks are running from the site to the waste area so that the excavator will not have to wait for one truck to make the entire trip.

This week, crews are excavating regional pond two. This area will serve as a detention pond for storm water, cleaning the water by allowing pollutants and silt to settle and preventing flooding by storing and slowing down the flow of storm water.

 The photo below shows the current size of the pond.

Construction to Begin

Construction on the project is about to get underway with the contractor expected to start mobilizing equipment within the next week or two.  The beginning phases of the work will center on the clearing and grubbing of areas where construction will take place including clearing of  trees in the areas where we will dispose of dirt.  The contractor will then move forward with the development of the large pond and the smaller pond structures in the railroad ROW area.

Throughout the construction process the contractor will be using heavy equipment to construct the project and with a number of children in the neighborhood the City would like to remind residents, especially parents, in the project area to talk to their children about staying away from the construction equipment and the construction site.

Pre-Construction Meeting and Project Start Date

The pre-construction meeting for the North Central Storm Water Project was held on June 24th. Contractors, engineers, city officials, and utility company representatives were all in attendance to ensure that everyone was informed about the project, allowing it to move forward smoothly.Work on the project is expected to start in the second week of July, will continue into next Spring, and will hopefully be wrapped up by the end of June, 2016.

At the meeting, the contractors laid out their plan for construction on the project. They will begin their work by developing regional ponds that will eventually hold excess storm water. This will be their main focus in the beginning of the project, along with seeding finished areas. Seeding will be done on areas of the project as they are completed so that as much of the project as possible will have the 60 day warm growing season required for the grass. Workers will also begin removing trees from construction easement areas. There are a few underground bores required for this project to run pipes under roads. Boring is expected to take place in late July or early August.

Also discussed at the meeting was the importance of preventing storm water pollution during this project. For all city construction projects, a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) must be created by the contractor to ensure that no pollutants enter the water. In their SWPPP, the contractor must identify potential pollutants and describe how they will protect against pollution. Because the main purposes of this project are to control storm water and reduce erosion, an effective SWPPP is very important.

February 2014 Update

The project continues to move forward but at a slower pace than we would like, so it goes with design and land acquisition.  Several things are happening, behind the scenes if you will, here is a quick update on what is occurring.

The project engineer, Bolton & Menk, continues to work on developing the plans and specifications for the project and dealing with the changes that we throw at them.  The plan is still based on the preliminary concept for the most part but with some minor changes.  

Staff is busy trying to put together the pieces on the land and easement acquisition parts of the puzzle in anticipation of a quick determination from the State of Iowa Historical Office who is conducting a historical and environmental review.  Their review time is up in the next few days and we are hopefully that we can then get notice to proceed with a 30 day public comment period at the end of which (provided we don't have any findings) we can proceed with finalizing the land and easement acquisitions.  Getting those completed will allow us to finalize the plans and specifications as we will know exactly where things need to be located.

Some good news as well, yesterday in the mail the signed copies of the State of Iowa Homeland Security funding program (Flood Mitigation Funds) agreement showed up!  We are excited to be one of the first communities in the State of Iowa to participate in this program and we look forward to having a couple of great projects as representative projects for the program (the North Central Project being one and the Expansion Blvd. Project and East Central Project being the others).

Finally this morning I uploaded the preliminary project concept map to the project web page and a map showing the drainage area for the project.  Take a minute to check those out.

Welcome to the City of Storm Lake North Central Storm Water Project Blog

Welcome to the City of Storm Lake's project blog for the North Central Storm Water Project.  We are pleased to provide you with this resource of project updates and details as we move forward with a key project in providing quality of life benefits to our residents and property owners.  We encourage you to check back often to receive project updates as the project moves forward.  You can also learn when a new project blog entry is made by following the City of Storm Lake on Facebook or following us on Twitter (@Storm_Lake).

Street Flooding at 10th and Russell St. Memorial Day 2013

The project is currently in the design phase with a goal of being ready for the bid process sometime in late spring early summer 2014.  City staff along with project engineers are also working with property owners in the neighborhood of the project to obtain the necessary easement and land acquisitions that will be needed to complete the project.  Formal land acquisition can not occur until the State of Iowa has done a historical review and approved the project from a perspective of damaging historical and cultural assets, this is underway currently and we hope that this will be completed by April 1, 2014.

Stay tuned to the blog and project web page for more information as the project moves forward.