By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Ortonville- During the regular Monday night meeting, the village council voted 5-0 to move forward with the Crossman Park drain project with Diamond Excavating.
The project was approved for up to $325,000, which includes contingency funds.
“Crossman Park is a low point, it collects a lot of water,” said village manager Ryan Madis. “This project will address those issues.”
Currently, when there is flooding in the park due to rain, the standing water takes a toll on surrounding residential properties and puts a strain on the residents’ septic fields. There has been a storm drain installed to drain the water to the Brandon Township offices parking lot, but from there the short-term solution has been to use a hose to pump water out of the parking lot and down to the Kearsley Creek.
“This will get the water from the township parking lot to the creek,” said Madis.
The storm drain installation will begin in February, and will close the north side of Mill Street from the township parking lot to the creek. It will also alleviate the need to pump water via hose.
“The park will not change,” said Madis.
This is the second phase of the project, the first of which was installing the storm drain in the park. This phase will start in February instead of waiting for warmer months.
“This would be best addressed in the winter when the ground is frozen so that we don’t have to pay a lot of money for dewatering,” said Madis.
The lack of dewatering costs would save around $50,000. The project will also take around three weeks, and Mill Street will be driveable and plowable until the warmer months when the new layer of asphalt can be put down.