For the first time in more than 50 years, Allen County announced it will update its stormwater master plan.
The Allen County Surveyor’s office will be working in partnership with Fort Wayne’s City Utilities Department. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will work with both in a planning assistance study, or PAS, to develop the county’s first new stormwater master plan since 1972.
This initiative is a collaboration between the Allen County Surveyor, Fort Wayne City Utilities, Maumee River Basin Commission, and officials from Huntertown, Leo-Cedarville, Monroeville, New Haven, and Woodburn, according to a release from city and county officials.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has authority to assist communities in developing plans around the use and conservation of water and related land resources under the Water Resources Development Act of 1974.
According to the Allen County Commissioners, this new study will also incorporate the newly-adopted "All in Allen" comprehensive plan to help "create a complete picture of water use today and into the future."
This will be the first stormwater master plan since major flooding in 1978, 1982, 1985 and 1991 caused more than $14 million worth of damage to downtown Fort Wayne.
Since that flooding, the city has built Headwaters Park in an effort to reduce flooding in the city and added more 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 trying to look for an idea on how we could move forward, and City Utilities came to me and said ‘Hey, we still use this. Would you have any interest in updating it?’” Fruchey said. “I said ‘absolutely.’”
The US Army Corps of Engineers will cover half of the cost of the PAS, with the Allen County Surveyor’s Office and Fort Wayne Utilities splitting the other half equally.
Fruchey said technology will be the difference in this plan. He said while the current master plan has lasted more than 50 years, he does not expect that to happen with the new plan, but he said it’s possible.
“Our analysis methods are better,” Fruchey said. “Our computer modeling of hydrology and hydraulics is much better, vastly improved from what these original engineers who put this plan together had.”
The PAS will run in four phases.
Phase I: Hydrology - determining where the current stormwater goes and where it will end up in the future along every watershed in Allen County.
Phase II: Engineering and Modeling - Designing hydraulics and hardware for new systems
Phase III/IV: Master plan design - prioritizing which watersheds to address based on complaint history to improve water quality and reduce flooding
Fruche said the PAS should take about five years to complete.
Rebecca Green contributed to this story.
