City Engineer Rick Gaul updated members of the Board of Public Works and Safety on the water issue at the 1st United Methodist Church at 400 North Michigan Street in downtown Plymouth.
Mike Stump representing the church said he contacted Stone Excavating and James came over and looked at the alley between the church and the fellowship hall. He said Stone felt inverting the alley would be the best way to fix the water getting into the basement of the fellowship hall.
Street Superintendent Jim Marquardt said he also spoke with Stone who liked the idea. Marquardt said, “Before someone spends a lot of money here. The gutter system in the church is internal through the wall off the roof and into the alley. I don’t know what the internal gutter in the church is like.” He recommended having the internal gutters televised to see if there is an issue. He also suggested using a dye water test to see if that water is getting into the basement.
Marquardt said the work the city did in the alley last year seems to be working.
Stump said they church is interested in what the city would do to help find a solution to the water in the basement.
Councilman Jeff Houin asked about the crack seal project they did in the alley last year and Marquardt said it looks like it’s holding tight. Houin said, “I’d hate to spend a lot of money and not know if the problem is internal. I’m not opposed to working with the church to find a solution, but I don’t want to commit to spending a lot of money to re-due that alley, not knowing if there is another cause or contributing factor to it.”
The Plymouth Board of Public Works and Safety decided to work with the church on finding someone to drop cameras into the interior gutter system to see if there is an issue there before taking on a major project such as inverting the alley.
