By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich-Following more than six years of deliberation, upgrades of the village Wheelock & Watkins Drain was set to begin last week.
The planned work on the agricultural drain built in 1897 encompasses about 139 homes within the village. The old drain, under the jurisdiction of Genesee County, has been one possible cause of flooding of several residents’ homes over the past few years. About seven years ago, the flooding intensified, prompting village officials to engage the county drain officials to investigate the issues.

As a result, petitions were signed and in a special meeting on April 9, 2013 at the village offices, a board of determination voted 3-0 to move forward with an upgrade to the Wheelock & Watkins Drain. At the time of the determination of necessity for the drain upgrades, supervisors from Mundy, Aregentine and Richfield townships chaired a public hearing and said the project should move forward. The petitioned that prompted the public hearing included many signatures from village residents and council members at the time.
Sue Hogan, senior engineer of the of surface water management for the Genesee County Drain Office said with decent weather the project should be completed in about four to six weeks.
“They can do about 100 foot of tile per day—some of the work will be the interconnection with old existing pipe,” said Hogan. “We’ll also have an inspector on site to oversee the project.”
Some of the final steps will have to wait until spring when paving and grass seed can be done, she added.
The construction contract of $548,106 came in below estimates, said Hogan. The total cost is about $775,000 and includes a 12 percent contingency of about $86,000 plus engineering costs.