Killing two birds with one stone. This was the idea behind Mammoth Sports Construction’s presentation at Monday evening’s joint meeting of the Iola City Council and school board.
Riverside Park poses flooding issues for the city and USD 257 has a need for ballfields that can still be utilized following heavy rains. The solution? Synthetic turf fields, bigger holding ponds and larger pumps to mitigate and redirect flood waters, according to Mammoth.
The scope of the $3.733 million project includes an artificial turf softball, baseball, and football field that will help store flood waters during a major storm event. The fields would operate as water detention areas from which water would be redirected north of the football field and west to a detention pond in a picnic area. From these locations, the water would then be pumped beyond the park’s levee to the north and west.
The fields would include layers of sand and rock, with trenches. In times of heavy rains, the runoff would be stored in a perimeter drain that reroutes the water to a holding pond.
Seth Soto, engineer with Mammoth, noted the new baseball field could store 350,000 gallons of water and the softball field would store 150,000 gallons, about 25% of what a heavy rainstorm would typically bring to the park. The fields would drain over the course of about 20 hours. The fields could be used even during such an event.
The plan also would expand a dry detention pond on the south side of the playground and picnic area that would store water during flooding and then be pumped out of the park. Most of the stormwater in the park would flow to this detention pond.
“It is all controlled,” said Soto of the proposal. “All the storm water is managed and is where it should be.”
Soto added the current fields are deemed “unplayable” during 30% of the sports teams’ typical season due to flooding. “We are excited to offer that 30% back to you at Riverside Park,” he said.
Soto said the design would be able to handle up to 9.1 inches of flood waters within 24 hours. The 2007 flood accumulated 15 inches of water over three days. Most recently, the flooding on April 28 resulted in 6 inches overnight.
A concern of several council members was the need to include the football field, which had not been previously discussed. The stormwater management and conversion costs of the football field are estimated at $140,000 and $904,000, respectively.
Council member Nicholas Lohman asked if the project was an “all or nothing” proposal. “I was a bit surprised to see the football field included,” he said. “How much of this plan is a la carte?”
Jake Farrant, owner of Mammoth Sports, explained the football field is an integral part of the water storage and was included to help prevent flooding of the Recreation Community Building. “We would have to find other places for that water if it’s not the football field,” he said.
The removal of the football field would result in increases to stormwater management costs in the other areas, Farrant noted.
“We’re aware that there are two different owners here,” said Farrant, in reference to the city and school district. The latter owns the football field and stadium. “We might be the only ones in the room looking at it as a whole and what would be the best fix if everyone was all on one page. You could say the recreation building flooding is probably not the school’s problem. Vice versa, you could say that having a synthetic turf football field is not the city’s problem.”
WHAT WOULD it cost if the city and school district chose to build new at a different location?
