The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

Parking for the Bowyer Building was a key topic for the County Commission study session Wednesday morning. A discussion with Sam Seeley of Zoning and Flood Plain Management and Bruce Boettcher of BG Consultants focused on multiple locations in the parking area around the building that will hold water and potentially create problems. Boettcher laid out the options he had observed for short-term fixes for drainage. Some of those could cause difficulty with the long term development of the parking area.

The commission also discussed a potential logjam issue in Northern Lyon County. The Reading tornado left fallen trees in a creek bed upstream from county bridges on Roads Y and Y5. Should flooding occur, this debris could potentially cause problems with those bridges or possibly even farther downstream.

Scott Jones, son of Jim Jones, one of three potentially affected landowners, brought the issue before the commission, along with Lyon County Engineer Chip Woods. Woods and Jones informed the commission of a Natural Resources Conservation Service program that would place only 25 percent of the cost to the county and landowners, with the organization either taking on 75 percent or reimbursing it to the funder for the extraction of the trees from the creek and removal to another location to be cut apart or burned. Simply moving the trees out of the creek didn’t necessarily cure all dangers, as they might still be in the flood plain.

Seeley was asked to overlay the given aerial photograph with a topographical map to determine where the flood plain in the area existed. The commission encouraged Jones to talk to the other land owners affected by the removal work and to continue gathering information and tabled the discussion until next week.

The following items were discussed and then approved during Thursday’s action session:

• An entrance application from Rural Water District Number 4 and the volunteer fire department on Road 170 between Roads “V” and “V5” and to install a culvert at no charge to the Rural Water District.

• Lyon County Election Official Tammy Vopat asked for approval to pay the annual fees for seven ELVIS workstations in the amount of $2,100. It was approved 3-0 in Thursday’s session.

• Rick Frevert sought approval of Resolution 7-12, a Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan for Lyon County, and on Thursday it was agreed on 3-0.

• The commission also approved the 2011 annual reports of Emporia and Waterloo Townships.