Repairing the spillover between the KPVA retention pond and the St. Joseph County (SJC) retention pond was to be part of County efforts to improve their basin to the south. However, lacking funding for stormwater projects, St. Joseph County suggests KPVA "should go ahead with any maintenance plans for the outlet yourselves and don’t wait on the county to enlarge the (SJC) basin."
Construction Supervisor John T. Law from the SJC Office of County Surveryor/Drainage Board confirmed with the County Engineer that renovation plans are on hold. With the larger SJC project idle, there will be no action on the smaller KPVA spillover. Law writes:
The county doesn’t own the land to expand the [SJC] basin yet, although that is in the works. There is no source of money for the county to work on stormwater projects. No tax or stormwater user fees are in place to generate money for stormwater storage projects in the county. The existing [SJC] basin was built as a state requirement to store stormwater runoff on site, as part of the Gumwood Road expansion project. The county has been and will continue to look for funding to reconstruct the basin but finding grants is a long slow process and creating a county stormwater assessment isn’t a popular idea amongst elected officials.
The Drainage Board/Surveyor’s office does assess all residents living in the Juday Creek watershed a minimal fee for maintenance projects on the main channel and/or the two tributaries of Juday Creek, the Scamahorn and Lushbaugh ditches. Each landowner living within the Juday Creek watershed pays $0.50 per acre/year or a platted home lot pays $5/year, and this has not changed since 1985. Major subdivisions classified as Urban Drains have their own drainage fund assessment which is usually around $20 per lot/year. Again, the monies raised in the individual Urban Drain fund can only be spent on maintenance of the stormwater system of that subdivision and not outside projects.
As I’m sure you know the Knollwood Park Villas development is a “private” development and therefore the county collects no money for drainage maintenance. All lots do pay a $5 fee for maintenance of Juday Creek, but then again so does everyone else.
...Since the outlet is private, the residence and/or HOA should go ahead with any maintenance plans for the outlet yourselves and don’t wait on the county to enlarge the basin.
Stormwater from much of KPVillas flows down land and through pipes to the KPVA retention pond. When the pond fills, the excess water spills over the southern berm as designed and flows a short distance to the SJC retention pond. However, over time that hydraulic action has cut back the dropoff into the SJC pond until the water now drops across the pathway behind the KPVA pond.
About seven feet of berm remain intact between the pond's edge and the extant dropoff. While SJC had suggested berm repairs would be part of any of the County's three plans to fix its own pond, those SJC pond plans are underfunded and on hold.
