Baxter shows off finished flood mitigation project

At a park on the south edge of Baxter, the city’s public works director Shawn Fuller and representatives from MSA Professional Services waited Tuesday afternoon with a cooler full of Champ ice cream cones and popsicles to treat visitors from a nationwide delegation who came to observe a nearly-completed storm water improvement project years in the making.

A bus of 50 members from the Council of State Community Development Agencies, a national group that assists with community development ideas, along with a member of the Iowa Department of Economic Development visited the small burg at 3:30 p.m. to see the $6.5 million in fixes meant to mitigate flooding issues the city had due to an insufficient 36-inch storm water piping which ran underneath Baxter streets and private properties. The drainage system, which deposited into a stream, could not handle the volume of torrential rain. But instead of replacing the full section of piping, Fuller said that the engineering decided to slow the water flowing into town.

The solution to Baxter’s problem was non-traditional, but ecologically sustainable. Over the past several years, the city has received $4.5 million in funding including a Sustainable Project-Community Block Grant of $500,000 and monies from the U.S. Government’s stimulus program totaling $1,279,000 to create a system that effectively reintegrates storm water back into the ground water system. Sites throughout the city use man-made grasslands, a 40-acre detention basin which captures and treats water, a 25-acre infiltration/detention basin which slowly treats and soaks water back into the ground and sewer to solve flooding issues. The city also constructed 600 feet of new linear 18-inch sewer piping to handle increased water flow.

The remaining $2 million in funding for the flood protection was raised by sewer rate increases, a proposition that was Fuller said was fairly well received by Baxter residents but not without some spirited civic debate.

“It is important for residents to understand that this project is not yet complete but very close,” Fuller said. “There are several cosmetic items left to do, however, the main components of the system’s design are effectively working and the properties adversely affected in the past are definitely realizing the benefit.”

The grassland aspect of the project in known as rain gardens. Fuller explained these patches a prairie inside the city will gather the storm water runoff from surrounding streets, and using layers of natural materials, will slowly filter the water as it’s eased into the storm sewers. He said there are 1,000 different aquatic grasses to absorb some moisture, peat gravel and a compost/sand blend allowing the water to be treated before it’s ultimately released into a stream.

Fuller said that their solution was also meant to be ascetically pleasing for Baxter residents, but he reminds taxpayers that, although the system is operational, it will take a few more years before the grassland look is achieved.

“There are specific seeding windows for the type of prairie and aquatic grasses for the detention basins,” he said. “Some will take time to establish, and that is why there is a 3-year seed management plan included within the (MSA) contract.”