The City of Soldotna heard public testimony on increasing flooding problems from a couple residents during an open house on a report encompassing the conditions and priorities of Soldotna’s roads.
Soldotna residents Warren Sullivan and Leonard Ball showed up with pictures and documentation showing the problems they’ve been experiencing near Jay Street since Griffin Avenue was put in.
Sullivan: “We have a flooding issue over there, it’s killing off all of the trees on the back of our property, flooding our roads, it’s caused problems with septic systems in the neighborhood.
Ball: “This has been an issue for quite a while and it keeps getting worse even though we have less precipitation so it’s just an issue of how to manage the water. The combination of this and the new sub-development that the city just approved in our area, that 32 acres is it?
Sullivan: “I think it’s 32 acres.
Ball: “But that’s going to continue to take away more vegetation and the ability to absorb moisture and people are going to start using more ways like French Drains and other ways to get the water table lower which is just going to add a ton more water our way.”
Patrick Cotter with PDC. Inc, Engineers said while the company was evaluating Soldotna’s 30 miles of paved streets and 11 miles of gravel roads to prioritize maintenance they had not seen these problems.
Cotter: “So we can take any public comments we get, incorporate them into the plan and kind of revise the draft, it’s nice hearing those local, specific reports so that if we’ve got things that are weighted equally from our assessment, those little things might tip the scale and we’ll say, ‘Oh yeah that ones got some public support and they’ve identified that issue,’ so it may rise a little bit above the others.”
PDC Inc. Engineers will revise the Streets Inventory and Management Plan draft for the city and present it before the Soldotna Council members at the regular meeting on March 9.
The plan will be used to prioritize streets that need preservation or renovation projects along with ranking streets based on maintenance importance for the Public Works Department.