Annual rainfall in Central Indiana is near 40 inches per year.  If y0u live or work on the east side of Frankfort you probably are already know that fact.

          We have pictures of Frankfort, Indiana flooding that date back to July 28, 1896. as well as pictures of the big flood of 1913. 

          We remember when some thoughtful Frankfort citizen furnished Kaspar Broadcasting with a boat so our engineers could get to our WILO transmitter site to put our community radio station back on the air. 

          Fast forward to the 21st century…March of 2009 and we find our city and county fathers are finally positioned, with a workable solution,  to take control and give our Frankfort population some flood relief.

          The recent Clinton County, Indiana preliminary 17 page Engineering Report for Eastside Regional Stormwater Detention Facility has been done by the Civil Engineering Firm of Butler, Fairman & Seufert.   Many Hanna Kessler Watershed Studies have been made but it is the latest one.             

          The report lists 4 alternatives.  All the way from doing nothing to alternative number 4 which appears to be quite promising.

          This alternative calls for the construction of water detention facilities upstream of the intersection of Maish Road and Wabash Street in order to alleviate flooding.  The proposed detention facility would consist of strategically placed wet bottom ponds.  This is not the place to get into the details of the various new pipe replacements, filter strips etc     The upshot….after one hundred plus years …. numerous mayors, numerous County Commissioners and numerous Councilmen…now Frankfort and Clinton county seems to be to the point where we have a workable solution to take control and fix the flooding of Frankfort’s Eastside. 

          The total estimated project cost of the east side detention facility  is approximately three million dollars.  Costs associated with property acquisition, installation of fencing, etc. have not been included in the cost estimate at this time.  But it all looks doable.  

          Recently Kaspar Broadcasting publicly called on our city and county fathers to fix the flooding on Frankfort’s east side and called for a completion date of August 2010.  KBC did this knowing that it could be another 100 years of Frankfort flooding if some date was not set.    

          The project now being considered does have a project schedule time line.  It has a completion date of December 2010 missing our completion date request by only 4 months.   That is ok with us.  

          Our city and county now has momentum  to finally do something about Frankfort’s east side flooding.  We sincerely hope that the cooperation between Frankfort City and Clinton County carries this project to completion.   

          It is vital that our Frankfort mayor takes a large view of the development and improvement of Clinton County as well as Frankfort.  I would like to see Mr. Chris Pippinger be the mayor that makes great things happen.  Cooperation between the county and city is essential. Without cooperation we continue to flounder.  

          If that cooperation happens, and we certainly hope it does, our Frankfort and Clinton County Fathers will have accomplished something that has been plaguing our community for over one hundred years.  Prospects for a better community are at hand.

          There will be a public meeting held this Thursday March 12th at 10am at the Clinton County Court House in the Commissioners office.   This meeting is critical to the advancement of Frankfort and Clinton County.  We hope it goes exceptionally well.