For the first time in over 50 years, Allen County has announced it will update its stormwater management master plan.
The Allen County Surveyor’s Office will work in partnership with the City of Fort Wayne, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will work with both on a Planning Assistance Study (PAS) to develop the county’s first new stormwater management master plan since 1972.
The initiative is a collaboration between the Allen County Surveyor, Fort Wayne City Utilities, the Maumee River Basin Commission and officials from Huntertown, Leo-Cedarville, Monroeville, New Haven and Woodburn, according to a news release from city and county officials.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is authorized under the Water Resources Development Act of 1974 to assist communities in developing plans to use and conserve water and related land resources.
According to Allen County Commissioners, this new study will also incorporate the recently adopted “All in Allen” comprehensive plan, which is intended to help “create a complete picture of current and future water use.”
This is the first stormwater management master plan since the severe floods in 1978, 1982, 1985 and 1991 that caused more than $14 million in damage to downtown Fort Wayne.
Since that flood, in an effort to reduce the risk of flooding in the city, the city has created Headwaters Park and built additional barriers to hold back floodwaters from the rivers.
Allen County Surveyor Mike Fruchey said those strategies have been effective, but a lot can change in 52 years.
“I was looking for an idea how we could move forward, and the public utility came to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re still using this. Would you be interested in upgrading it?'” Fruchey said. “I said, ‘Absolutely.'”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will pay half of the cost of the PAS, with the Allen County Surveyor’s Office and Fort Wayne Utilities sharing the other half equally.
Fruchey said technology will make the difference with this plan. He said that while the current master plan has stood the test of time for more than 50 years, he doesn’t expect that to happen with the new plan, but he said it’s possible.
“Our analysis methods are better,” Fruchey said. “Our computer models of hydrology and hydraulics are much better, a huge improvement over what the original engineers had when they came up with this plan.”
The PAS will take place in four phases.
Phase I: Hydrology – Determining where current stormwater flows and where it will end up in the future along all watersheds in Allen County.
Phase II: Engineering and modeling – design of hydraulics and hardware for new systems
Phase III/IV: Drafting a master plan – prioritizing watersheds based on complaint history to improve water quality and reduce flooding
Fruche said the PAS would take about five years to complete.
Rebecca Green contributed to this story.
