$660K project would reduce flooding on Mayville’s Fulton Street
By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
MAYVILLE — Restoration can occur on the Fulton Street Drain here — with owners of 113 properties helping pay for the estimated $660,000 project — following a Board of Determination decision on Thursday.
The project’s final cost could be higher or lower, according to Tuscola County Drain Commissioner Robert J. Mantey, who will meet with engineers and attorneys before determining the scope and the cost of the project.
“If my decision is to continue to go through with the project, then we’ll put out for bids,” Mantey said.
Property owners who would help pay for the project include the State of Michigan — as M-24 runs through the drainage district — and Genesee & Wyoming Inc., which operates on train tracks that sometimes get flooded due to the drain, described by an engineer as inadequate and in disrepair.
Flooding problems in the Fulton Street area “contribute to property damage, to health and safety concerns, specifically with that road and road damage,” said engineer Ronald B. Hansen of Spicer Group of Saginaw.
The Board of Determination — Dave Milligan, Duane Lockwood and Jason Koehler — own land in Tuscola County but don’t own
See DRAIN A3
any of the 113 properties in the 65-acre Fulton Street Drain drainage district, which sits entirely inside the village of Mayville. The board determined the restoration project is necessary to protect the public health of Mayville residents.
Not all of those addressing the board on Thursday at a public hearing in the Fremont Township Hall agreed with the board’s conclusion.
Water that occasionally covers railroad tracks in the village is due to a broken culvert Mayville village leaders have failed to maintain, according to Bruce McGhee, a Fulton Street resident who said the village hasn’t properly taken care of streets or culverts.
“The dysfunctional nature of the government of the village of Mayville has been such that they have failed to undertake repairs on the infrastructure,” McGhee told the board. “These repairs include streets which have culverts under them, and a lot of the standing water comes when these culverts are broken down or clogged.”
McGhee said he sees the railroad tracks in Mayville every day, noting “I have yet to see water come up over the railroad tracks for any length of time” and that any water always goes away.
“I haven’t seen specifics about where the health and safety of the village is concerned at this time,” McGhee said.
But Barbara Valentine, who lives along Fulton Street, told the board the drainage problem along Fulton Street has created an unsafe situation.
“Last year I had two windows busted out in nine days in my vehicle, from crap from that road during the thaw,” Valentine said. “We have potholes out there that are deep enough to bathe a child in. Water rolls down the hill and knocks all the debris out of those potholes. People do not (obey) the speed limit. They drive by there going 40 or 50 miles an hour sometimes … and they shoot projectiles toward the houses in that area.
“There’s a sidewalk there. Children play on that sidewalk. It’s dangerous. It’s a hazard. It causes property damage to our home. We have a wet basement consistently. We’re one of the few families in this town that have put a lot of money into our house. We didn’t pack up and move. We stayed. We were devoted. … I expect the municipality that I pay taxes to to use that money appropriately. This needs to be fixed.”
Hansen said much of the existing drain consists of “old clay tile,” with part of the tile more than 70 years old “and in locations probably nearing 100 years old.” Hansen said he observed flooding in several other low spots near other streets in the village, and a “collapsed catch basin near Trend Street and Main Street.”
Regarding the flooding over Fulton Street, Mayville village President Clare Fryers told the Advertiser that “We can’t do the road until we find a place to send the water.”
McGhee said he believes public officials took the appropriate steps to hold Thursday’s public hearing, but said “somehow the idea hasn’t been communicated to the people of the village that we’re talking about making another assessment district.”
McGhee added that “Most of the people in this village are on a very low or fixed income, and they’re not going to be able to stand being taxed for a drain that will, in effect — in a sideways kind of way — get some of our streets repaired.”
The village, the state, the railroad corporation and other land owners in the drainage district would share the cost of the drain restoration project, according to Hansen.
“I will tell you not everybody’s going to get an equal assessment, because your assessment is going to be proportional to the amount of land that you own,” Hansen said. “Larger land owners typically get larger assessments, but those details need to be worked out yet.”
Steve Charette told the board he and his wife moved to Mayville last year.
“We understand that things have gone on in the past,” Charette said. “The roads haven’t been maintained, the drains haven’t been maintained — I get it.
“But we can’t just let the place go to pot. We’ve got to take care of it and we’ve got to fix what needs to be fixed. As a taxpayer, I’m gonna have to pay my share, and it is what it is.”
Ron Anderson asked engineer Hansen if anyone considered cleaning out the area near the outlet pipe where the Fulton Street Drain empties its water to see if that remedies the flooding.
“What we’ve concluded was where it’s an 18-inch pipe right now needs to be a 36-inch pipe,” Hansen said. “Certainly, cleaning out sediment on the downstream drain is going to help improve the situation, but the pipe that is there now is significantly too small to handle the flow of water and our calculations show that if that outlet pipe isn’t replaced, that the flooding is still going to exist.
“We’re trying to do the minimum amount necessary here in order to solve the problems. We’re not trying to take a ‘Cadillac’ approach, but the engineering calculations show the pipe is too small. Plus it’s 100 years old, it’s clay, it’s broken, it’s collapsing, it’s filled with roots. It’s in bad shape.”