CENTER TOWNSHIP | After 18 years of frequent flooding, Susan Powers thinks it is long past time for the Valparaiso Lakes Area Conservancy District to do something about it.
Powers is one of the leaders of a group of about nine property owners that spend a lot of time wading in the water. They are the low point of the development of former summer cottages along the south side of Flint Lake just north of the Valparaiso city limits.
After years of complaining to the district board, the group hired lawyer Kim Ferraro, of the Legal and Environmental Aid Foundation in Valparaiso. Ferraro said if the board fails to take substantial action to correct the problem in the next month, she will file suit seeking a court order to force the board to correct the problem.
"They don't have a large voice, so they've been ignored," Ferraro said. "These folks have paid $90 a month to the district for years, and they are getting nothing."
Following Monday's rain, which dumped 3 inches or more on the area during a 12-hour period, Powers said more than half of her 1-acre lot on Chickadee Lane was under water, much of it several feet deep.
"After six or seven years (of making complaints at board meetings), I stopped going because of the yelling and threats, and we weren't getting anywhere," Powers said.
She said residents were told the area was being used as a retention pond and, if they didn't like it, they could install their own pumps. Installing a pumping station to send the water into Flint Lake would cost about $250,000, they were told.
Powers said she and her husband bought the property for $5,000. A house had to be torn down because it was in such bad shape, but nobody told them about the flooding problem. They would not be able to sell the house now without letting people know about the flooding, and she doesn't really want to move. Her daughter lives across the street and her mother, whom she takes care of, lives nearby.
"We're not going to do to someone else what was done to us," Powers said. "That's why we've been fighting all this. It's time to get it fixed because, if it's fixed, it would be fine here."
Ferraro said Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper criticized the district board in July for its lack of action. District General Manager Robert Minarich said Harper has offered to provide financial help from the county to correct the problems. Minarich said Harper gave him contour maps of the area Tuesday, which were turned over to the district's engineer.
"He is studying the options of what can be done," Minarich said. "We're hoping by the board meeting Wednesday he'll have some preliminary recommendations."
Minarich said the study has nothing to do with the threatened lawsuit because he was unaware of the residents' intent to file one. He said the district has considered many options in the past but didn't follow through on any of them because they were either too costly or "would not complete the job the way we would like it to be done."
One solution was to fill the low area with up to 6,000 cubic yards of dirt at a cost of about $50,000, but Minarich said "that would just push the puddle somewhere else." Putting in the pumping station to pump the water into Flint Lake would cause flooding somewhere else around the lake.
