The Marshall County Drainage Board welcomed new citizen member David Stults to their meeting Monday morning.
The Drainage Board was updated on damage to the Lawrence Pontius Tile arm on 1st Road. Work by the highway department shows that Century Link installed a fiber optic cable right through the clay tile.
The spring flooding brought the issue to a head when several property owners experienced severe flooding. When Century Link was approached by the County Surveyor of the damage done, they responded that the cable had been directional bored 20 years ago and Indiana Statue has a 10 year deadline. They did agree to pay for half of the estimated repairs of $5,355 to replace 630 feet of 8’ pipe.
Craig Cultice told the board the regulated drain is not on maintenance and therefore there is no money to pay the other half.
Drainage Board member Mike Delp questioned the use of directional boring 20 years ago saying, “I question that it was put in that way. What I’m saying is it was more recent than that. I’m saying it wasn’t 20 years ago. I think they should pay for all of it.”
Citizen member Randy Glingle suggested asking the County Highway to use some of their funds to pay for the county’s half. He went on to say, “It’s obvious they screwed our tile up. It should be their job to fix our tile.”
Cultice suggested asking the petitioners to pay the other half.
The drainage board is going to ask Century Link to provide documentation of when the cable was put in. They will also look through road cut permits to see if one was ever granted for the work.
