Supervisors OK English River Watershed agreements
With gritted teeth and seemingly mutterings of “okay,” Iowa County supervisors approved a series of resolutions regarding the English River Watershed and Community Development Block Grant funding.
Supervisors voted 4-0 on a contract amendment with the city of Kalona, and resolutions approving the agreement with Iowa County and four other east-central Iowa counties within the watershed: Johnson, Keokuk, Poweshiek and Washington.
The state of Iowa received a $96.9 million dollar grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to assist with flood mitigation and water quality projects in eight watersheds statewide. Iowa County is involved in two of those, totaling about $10 million: those for the English River and Clear Creek watersheds. The actions approved on Friday, May 19, concerned the English River watershed, which flows through southern Iowa County.
Jennifer Fencl with the East Central Iowa Council of Governments told supervisors that $4.1 million is earmarked for the English River watershed projects, to implement practices including wetlands and wetland restoration, farm ponds, terraces, contour buffers and buffer strips. It’s a five-year program, and the entire total project budget – other components are for the project coordinator, planning and design and data collection – is $5,715,490.
Fencl expects most of the money for the English River watershed to be spent in southwestern Iowa County, as well as near the headwater of the river in west-central Poweshiek County.
“It meets the requirements of HUD funding for mitigating flood impacts in areas with unmet environmental need,” she said, noting those areas were most impacted by the floods in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Kalona is providing the watershed coordinator employees for the projects, and because Iowa County is considered the lead county, the contract is between them and the state of Iowa. Money flows through Iowa County.
“How did we get that position and why isn’t Kalona the person if they have the employee?” asked supervisor Kevin Heitshusen, who expressed concerns about funding being used more for administrative costs. He also had concerns on whether landowners would be willing to begin mitigation projects.
Fencl replied that the state needed a county to be a “lead county” in each of the eight watersheds that got funding statewide. Additionally, Iowa County has the largest area of impact upon the watershed; Washington County, where the river’s mouth flows into the Iowa River, has very little.
“That’s where the construction projects will likely happen,” said Fencl.
In response to a question from Heitshusen about ongoing or proposed projects, nothing has happened yet, said Fencl. Outreach will begin this summer or fall, she said, and the environmental assessment is being done at a “high programmatic level,” and until that happens, nothing can proceed.
The watershed program is based on a typical watershed management plan and help with other grant funding. The watershed management authority is the lasting component, Fencl added.
The contract amendment with the city of Kalona is to include planning services and the project coordinator.
“So this is putting into the contract stuff that wasn’t available at the time the contract was done,” said board chairman Ray Garringer, to which Fencl said yes.
After hesitation, supervisors agreed to the motion, along with agreements with other counties within the watershed. Fencl said the resolutions will allow the watershed to do administrative work to get projects started in other counties and if mitigation needs to happen, they would agree on the procedure.
“We’re going to agree to try to make this work if we begin a practice outside Iowa County,” said Fencl.
Supervisor Vicki Pope expressed concern there was being too much work put on county auditor Jessica Stohlmann to administer the program. But Pope, along with the other supervisors, agreed to the resolutions.
ENGINEER
County engineer Nick Amelon and supervisors talked about a pending review of the county’s policy reclassifying roads from Level B to Level A service.
Several requests have come up recently, prompting the review and for Amelon to talk about a rough draft he had come up with. He had looked over policies of other counties in coming up with the pitch.
Two sections are planned, one for a petition by property owners and another for economic development. The property owner clause covers such topics as bearing of cost, standards such as right-of-way, road width, road surfacing and other Iowa Department of Transportation standards. Business-related upgrades cover such things as assessed valuation of property, job development, purchase of right-of-way and costs.
Level B – and in some cases, Level C – roads are located throughout the county and typically receive less maintenance than do Level A roads.
Supervisors also agreed to add additional stop signs at two intersections in the county. One is at 330th Street and Poweshiek-Iowa Road, in southwestern Iowa County; and at S Avenue at Iowa-Benton Road, north of Amana.
Both intersections are four-way intersections, but are controlled by just one stop sign. In both cases, there were concerns over limited sight distance.
OTHER BUSINESS
Supervisors also rejected a plan to place underground electrical hookups to the pump station along the levee in Marengo, noting the short distance and cost involved.
Approved were:
A pair of liquor licenses for the Amana Colonies Outdoor Convention Facility. One is for Middle Amana Park for the Renaissance Festival May 27-29, while the other is a transfer to the Miarket Bark, 707 46th Ave.
Cigarette permits for Kum & Go, at Interstate 80 exit 216; and Casey’s General Stores at exit 225 and in Amana.
A fire extinguisher inspection contract with Sterling.