Brookshire residents petition for drain tile conversion

Some residents of the Brookshire subdivision have formally petitioned the Howard County Drainage Board to have its private drains converted to regulated drains.

The petition, announced Monday at the board’s regular meeting, sets in motion a public meeting at 5 p.m. Nov. 18 in room 338 in the Howard County Administration Building, 220 N. Main St. The county is expecting the proposal and public meeting to be contentious.

More than 30 property owners in the subdivision signed the petition, according to Howard County Surveyor Greg Lake.

Now, Lake’s office is tasked with locating all the private drains, come up with a possible conversion and reconstruction plan and propose an annual assessment that will be collected from the 70ish parcels in the subdivision to pay for the project.

Ultimately, the decision to convert and reconstruct the drains and levy an assessment on the property owners is up to the Drainage Board. A final decision could come from the board as soon as December after the Nov. 18 public hearing.

A precise cost of the conversion and reconstruction is not yet available, but Lake told the Tribune after Monday’s meeting the project will be in the millions.

A full fix of the drains is likely still a decade or so away even if the conversion and assessments are approved, Lake said. Any money garnered from the assessments will be used to fix the immediate and most pressing problems.

The subdivision, located off West 300 South just west of Kokomo, has mutual private drains that handle the area’s wastewater and stormwater.

Those private drains, though, are too small, according to Lake.

Additionally, the drain tiles are single wall, plastic perforated that have been infiltrated and damaged by trees. To add to the problems, the drains are often not located in the easements where they’re supposed to be.

As a result, the Surveyor’s Office has been called numerous times over the years due to drainage issues.

Because of the poor drainage, some of the subdivision’s roads have flooded, and water is slow to recede.

The constant flooding, standing water and then below-freezing weather has at times caused a stretch of McKibben Drive to become so slick it is essentially an “ice skating rink.” Because of that, the Howard County Highway Department closed a stretch of McKibben Drive last winter.

“It’s going to continue to fail until we come up with an overall solution,” Lake said.

A fix to the issue is wanted by the county because the failed drains are now damaging county property.