A small pond and some lost paperwork caused some friction between the city of Manhattan and property owners at Tuesday’s city commission work session. Property owners Byron and Michelle Lewis asked commissioners last night to pay for silt removal from a detention pond on their lot in the Lee Mill Heights district. While the Lewises maintain this pond has always retained water and been a fixture on the property, public works director Rob Ott said this pond was installed by city engineers for storm water management purposes. The silt now sitting at the bottom of the pond on the Lewises property is causing some runoff issues in their neighborhood, but the question was how much silt should be removed from the pond. The Lewises would like to see the silt removed to the point where the pond could retain water, while city commissioners expressed apprehension at using storm water funds to create a recreational pond.
The issue is magnified by the fact no record of this detention pond exists in public works documentation, although Ott was able to produce mention of the pond in documents from a city commission meeting nearly a decade ago. Commissioners agreed on a solution for the pond which would remove the silt and cost the city upwards of $60,000. Ott said the project will come to bid and be brought before commissioners in the fall.
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