BROOKFIELD TWP. Officials discuss flooding prevention

Some argued that various small projects would be better options.
By MIKE VAN CLEAVE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
BROOKFIELD -- Flooding of Yankee Creek in July prompted township trustees and state Sen. Marc Dann to hold a brainstorming session Thursday to discuss ways to prevent floods.
"Everyone knows that there was a devastating flood here in July," Dann said. "We [public officials] haven't given it the attention that the public sector should have."
Dann, of Liberty, D-32nd, explained that the meeting was meant to be a brainstorming session where members of the community and public officials could discuss what to do about the flooding.
The next step, he said, is to take the ideas to U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Some ideas
Among the ideas discussed was rebuilding a dam, which was estimated by officials to cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than $1 million dollars.
If the corps does take on the project, it would cover about 65 percent of the cost, and the community would have to come up with the rest, officials said.
The cost along with possibility that the dam would raise water levels in the northern part of the creek provoked some to argue that various small projects would be better options.
Having a creek cleanup, creating a series of small retention ponds and appealing to businesses to help out with costs by turning the creek into a family attraction were some of the ideas discussed.
Dann said that he and Brookfield trustees will hold another meeting to determine where to find funding for the project after an official study of Yankee Creek is done.