Dike gate no problem, Marion says
Staff writer
City officials are confident residents and businesses in Marion’s valley are not in any danger because of the nonfunctional upstream flood control gate at the convergence of Mud and Clear creeks.
“Whether that gate is closed or not will make zero difference during a flood event inside the levee,” the city’s contract engineer, Darin Neufeld, told the city council Monday. “Everything that we’re going to see collected inside the levee during a big, huge, heavy rain is stuff that lands here inside the city. It’s not stuff coming from outside. So if there’s a huge rain north of town where Mud and Clear Creek come from, and that water was clear up to the top of the levee, hydraulically, no water, gallons per minute-wise, is going to come through that tube when that gate is fully open.”
Mayor Michael Powers asked Neufeld to reiterate publicly what he’d told the city privately so, as Powers said, “the public doesn’t think they’re in danger of drowning.”
A statement April 28 by Cottonwood Valley Drainage District expressed concern about the urgency fixing the stuck valve because flooding happened in the 1980s when the value was left open.
Former Mayor Peggy Blackman recalls significant flooding in the 1980s when a levee supervisor forgot to close the valve. She noted that, in a significant rain event, a flap valve at the lower end of the valley is forced shut, preventing water added by the upstream valve from flowing through Marion if the upstream valve is open.
After struggling since October to find an expert in Kansas qualified to fix the stuck valve, the city has just hired Mid-America Valve, an Overland Park engineering firm to give an estimate for repair.