The Detention Pond

The chronic flooding that has been occuring in the detention pond/Chamberry Park was one of our big petition items. City Council passed with a unanimous vote 5-0 this evening, Tuesday, October 6th, to fund the improvements necessary to fix the chronic flooding issues. This "fix" will provide an increased slope to the area, increasing the grade from 1/2 % where it currently is at to a 2 1/2% grade. Because of this, it will preclude any future city soccer to occur at this location, but it will allow this area to be utilized by the neighborhood without the intrusion of "soggy socks" or the health risk associated with swampy areas. It is possible/likely that the grade may not be that noticable to those that utilize this area, according to the city engineer. Good news! The city engineer will now review the information to determine the best course of action based on the late start in the season. Improvements may begin next week, or in the best interest of appearance, it may be postponed until the spring. We'll keep you posted.

Chamberry Park, as identified by the city, is a park as well as a detention basin. So what is a detention basin? A detention basin is a lower area that is designed to temporarily hold a certain amount of water to drain out to another location. This is very important to us in this location because we are in a critical run-off area. Also, with our clay soil that causes water to run off more quickly than sandy or loamy soil, it is very important for our area to have a place for this rapid runoff of water to accumulate thereby avoiding flooding in other areas. This detention basin is intended to hold this runoff, however, it should be draining shortly after rain/run-off. Fixing the slope, as well as the sunken areas, should eliminate the flooding issue we see now.

Wow! A big thanks to our city council and city engineer for allowing this to move forward!