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Highway
getting a lift
across restored wetland
Bloomington Herald-Times
- 2/6
The
highway that runs across the Goose Pond area is set to be elevated
to avoid flooding and improve water flow in the wetland-in-progress.
Property
owner Maurice Wilder gave verbal agreement Wednesday to the Natural
Resource Conservation Service to allow the work on Ind. 59.
Denise
Held, engineer and Goose Pond project coordinator for the NRCS,
said Wilder planned to sign the documents permitting the work
Wednesday.
The
Indiana Department of Transportation has approved the estimated
$10 million project, which will be paid for through the Federal
Highway Administration's Transportation Enhancement Program. The
federal money is available through the federal and state wetland
banking credit program.
The
program gives the highway department the opportunity to decide
which wetlands are conserved during highway construction projects.
Linton
Mayor Jimmie K. Wright said raising Ind. 59 will address flooding
in the area. "I think it will be an advantage to have the
road raised," he said.
He
also said he hopes the Goose Pond area will draw tourists to Linton,
thereby boosting the town's economy.
Roger
Shake, an area farmer who opposes the Goose Pond wetland restoration,
is concerned the highway elevation will lead to more flooding
in his fields. Shake farms approximately 1,000 acres west of Goose
Pond. "Raising the highway will help the highway, but it
will not help me," Shake said.
The
Department of Transportation has tentatively scheduled construction
to begin in 2007. The project will include more than two miles
of Ind. 59 and one mile of South County Road 200.
Held
said raising Ind. 59 is the best possible decision for controlling
floodwater during heavy rains in the Goose Pond area, which is
being restored as a wetland.
"We
are preliminarily planning to divert water from Black Creek and
Brewer Ditch into the Goose Pond, and this will alleviate flooding
upstream," Held said. "There should be less problems
than there is now with flooding."
Held
said the highway construction will improve the flow of water in
the wetland. It will also include pull-offs for drivers to stop
and view wildlife and will straighten out a sharp curve on Ind.
59.
Larry
Heil, of the Federal Highway Administration, said the elevation
of Ind. 59 will allow water to ebb and flow under the highway
and will not flood neighboring farmers' fields. "Right now,
the road is lower than the water levels," he said. "If
the road can be raised, the water would rise and fall with the
seasons."
The
height and design of the road elevation have not yet been determined.
Project engineers have suggested Ind. 59 could be raised from
2 to 6 feet.
Wilder,
whose Florida-based corporation owns the 7,200-acre Goose Pond
and Beehunter Marsh, enrolled the area in a federal wetlands program
in August of 2001.
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