Hoping to be left high and dry

New Berlin - On its long list of flood-control candidates, the hard-pressed New Berlin Stormwater Utility has targeted four New Berlin oft-flooded neighborhoods for help this year.

But those targeted projects don't include another more-costly fix, which alone could exceed the amount the utility can borrow in one year, for the flooded areas along 124th Street and Meadow Lane.

Cost estimates for the various targeted projects also exceed the $500,000 the utility can borrow. Nicole Hewitt, city stormwater management engineer, said the utility will to do the most pressing projects first and get to the rest if money is left over.

The four improvements

A priority project this year is a $150,000 project to alleviate repeated basement flooding along Honey Lane at Elm Grove Road and the Union Pacific railroad tracks running east and west. To accomplish its goals, the utility would need to seek cooperation from the railroad.

A $150,000 pipe-lining project would help fix repeated basement flooding on Sherwood Drive from Highland Memorial Park Cemetery.

Basement flooding on Prospect Drive to Underwood Creek through Milton Court would be addressed with a $190,000 project.

Two residences experience flooding along Park Avenue, due to an undersized culvert downstream at Graham Street, would be aided with a $100,000 project to install a bigger culvert and expand the channel for stormwater to flow.

Solving a bigger problem

But the fix and the funding sources remain difficult to find for the Meadow Lane and 124th Street areas, where floodwaters have reached three feet deep in one basement.

Dennis and Kim Harmon, the owners of that home, and the owners of four others hit the hardest by flooding have asked the city to buy them out. Officials were agreeable if a grant came through, but it didn't. The city is trying again this year for a state Department of Natural Resources grant.

In the meantime, the city is trying to help the neighborhood by at least formulating a $480,000 plan to create two water holding areas. The project must be approved by FEMA and the DNR, Hewitt said.

Still, the lag time is a disappointment for Kim Harmon.

"It doesn't sound like there will be help for the spring rains," said Harmon, whose family has lost cars, furnaces and appliances to floodwaters.

Even if approved, the project probably would only reduce the number of times the neighborhood floods, Hewitt and the Harmons agree. A complete fix would be a $10 million stormwater underground storage tank that the utility could not afford, Hewitt said.

New Berlin and Greenfield will be working together this year on alleviating yard flooding and stream bank erosion from Wildcat Creek north of Howard Avenue west of 124th Street. The cost is $78,325 in each of three years.