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Dickinson Co. Supervisors Again Hear Concerns Over Drainage Tile On North End Of Milford

August 29, 2023 Steve Schwaller

(Spirit Lake)– Ongoing issues with a drainage tile on the north side of Milford was the topic of discussion at a rare Monday meeting of the Dickinson County Board of Supervisors. A public hearing was held on proposed repairs to the tile, which is in Drainage District 50. The supervisors, acting as drainage district trustees, voted a year ago to halt a project to make improvements to the tile, which would have included increased capacity. The project was scrapped after it was discovered it wasn’t going to be feasible once work on the $600,000 project had already started. That left landowners stuck with assessments, for a project that was never completed. One landowner said she got hit with an assessment of $13,685 for about 40 acres of land…

“If we proceed and if we’re assessed on the north side, we’ve had no drainage issues in tile, we have no tile, we don’t have any issues. If we proceeded at the rate that we were a year ago with that cost, we would maybe have to sell the farm.”

The owner of some storage units that he says continue to flood during heavy rain events is demanding something be done to address the problem. He also called on supervisors to get a different engineer to come up with other possible alternatives. The current engineer said that under Iowa drainage law, just making a repair wouldn’t allow them to put in a bigger pipe. He says that won’t solve the problem.

The supervisors took no action following Monday’s hearing that went of for about an hour and-a-half.