By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Recent rain storms have caused problems with flooding in Mona that are largely due to the fact that many of the city's drainage ditches and stormwater routes have been filled in by residents in subdivisions.
Other problems have been caused by construction of the sewer system, the laying of irrigation lines, the improper grading of sidewalks, the clogging of culverts and by those contractors who have laid lateral lines to the sewer from homes to the street sewer trunk lines.
Jeff Smith, council member, said that, on August 23, when a cloud burst pelted the city, the area between 100 North to Main to 200 North and from 600 South to 200 West became high water areas that threatened to flood the basements of homes in that area.
"Water was flowing around both sides of a couple of homes on 200 West," said Smith. "We cleaned out a culvert on 200 North and the stormwater there runs pretty well now."
In the other affected areas of the town, however, stormwater needs to be directed into some manufactured channels because, in more intense storms, it creates a river that runs down the sidewalks.
Smith said that Jesse Ralphs, representing Sunrise Engineering, said that the city needed to have curb and gutter along the streets in that area of the community. The gutter would serve to move drainage through the community following the slope of the land.
"I would like to see us do a curb back to the sidewalk," said Smith.
Homeowners along the route have filled in the drainage, have put ornamentation on the city's right-of-way and use the gravel strip to park their vehicles.
"The sidewalks need to be taken out," said Smith. "They need to be rebuilt."
Water was ponding and pooling along that route and would, likely do so, with a curb and gutter until the sidewalk was made to slope toward the street.
Another problem, Ron Veater, resident, said was that the irrigation line, when it was installed, was not compacted. He is not able to pull his travel trailer into his home without it dragging. In fact, his vehicles drag and one had bumper damage because of the hump that had been created because the soil was never compacted.
"If the sidewalk has dropped 6-inches, that is not acceptable," said Smith. "We need to re-create a drainage channel or ditch along 200 West to allow flow to the north."
At the corner of 500 South and 200 West, he said, both culvert ends (on both sides) need to be cleaned out and the drainage needs to be lowered both ways to meet the culvert invert elevation.
Lori Veater said that they did not have the problem prior to the construction period with the drainage, but now they have continual problems.
Homes in that area were facing basement flooding if something was not done soon, hopefully before winter.
Smith said he thought that the city should talk to homeowners and explain to them that they needed to open the drainage back up in front of their homes.
"The city should not have to do it (pay for someone to run a bulldozer along the city right-of-way)," he said.
He said that it also upset him that the city did not have a longer guarantee with street repair contractors so that the drainage could have been addressed when, after there was settling and after drainage problems became apparent, they could have been addressed and not on the city's dime.
Smith said that he would, most likely, not get the work done on the drainage before winter this year but he pledged that it would not become a forgotten topic and that he would continue to work to see the problem solved.
