Canfield nears start of flood prevention work

CANFIELD — The township is getting closer to starting work on a flood aversion project that a group of homeowners has been fighting for about two years.

The township plans to build a 1/3-acre detention pond to hold rain runoff and release it slowly into drains that eventually feed Indian Run Creek. The township’s engineering firm is to recommend the lowest and best bidder at the trustees’ meeting tonight, said board of trustees President Paul Moracco.

The pond is expected to help 18 families on Jamison Place and Indian Run Trail who are flooded by an Indian Run tributary, officials have said.

It is Phase III of the Indian Run Project, which is designed to control stormwater from about 1,200 acres that include the neighborhood off Tippecanoe Road where Celeste Liberato lives on Fairway Drive.

Liberato, whose yard is above the township-owned three-acre wooded lot where the pond will be built, is against the pond. She and a handful of other residents say it isn’t going to control the flooding, and that a pipe underneath a shopping plaza on Tippecanoe is too narrow, which causes the water to back up and flood the tributary.

For complete story, read Monday's Vindicator and Vindy.com.