City officials are moving forward with addressing flooding and other drainage issues, while hiring dedicated employees to manage maintenance needs in this year’s budget.
At the Sept. 8 meeting, the Taylor City Council unanimously approved adopting the final Drainage Master Plan, prepared by Halff Associates, Inc. The plan includes documentation and analysis of drainage problems, complaints, flooding hotspots as well as $35 million in projects as proposed solutions that could be incorporated into the city’s Capital Improvement Project (CIP) plan, as well as proposed new fees to fund portions of these improvements.
“The drainage plan took approximately a year to work on and it gives us a map of what we will be looking at for future drainage projects,” said Jim Gray, public works director. “The city will be able to pick and choose projects as funding is available. We are now and continue to explore grant opportunities to help fund our drainage projects.”
The largest planned improvement is a threephased, $6 million project to build a regional stormwater detention facility, as well as a new storm drain system and other improvements for the Donna Channel, which Halff describes as “currently undersized” and causes stormwater flows to exceed channel banks and go out toward Davis Street until it reaches Bull Branch.
According to the report, this project would alleviate flooding on Davis Street, and Drake and Mallard Lanes.
“We have had different residents who have expressed concerns about the ability of the water to flow through the channel and to flow through to make its way to Bull Branch,” Gray said. “It’s making its way through some homes that were getting water in them and then some yards that were getting water in them.”
The second largest is a $5 million project to build a new drainage system to mitigate flooding at Kimbro and Shaw streets, which “experience significant ponding during large storm events from West Eighth Street to Second Street,” according to the report.
Gray said in the plan there are dozens of different projects ranging from approximately $60,000 to others in the millions.
According to city leaders, the next steps will also be a costbenefit analysis for the projects for grant applications, and efforts to develop an updated impervious layer fee, so the city can collect all potential revenue.
“This is just one more step that the city is moving forward with, looking into our drainage issues,” Gray said. “In the past, we have changed our drainage regulations and we have had a smaller level of projects identified by Halff engineers, and this is a larger group of projects that Halff is identifying for us.”
In addition to the Drainage Master Plan, the city council also allocated money in this year’s budget for new employees from the Municipal Drainage Utility System (MDUS), which is funded through a fee based on impervious cover for businesses and residences. “We look to set up a four-man crew to work on drainage-only issue within the city,” Gray said. “We have never had a dedicated drainage crew in the city before. Council has been working very closely with public works to fund projects that they are hearing from their constituents that they would like us to be working on.”
Concentrated flooding areas detailed in the Drainage Master Plan
