What began as a search for adequate ballfields for the Iola High softball and baseball programs ballooned into a comprehensive flood mitigation plan for Riverside Park Monday night.
“You can’t have one without the other,” advised Jake Farrant, owner of Mammoth Sports Construction of Meriden.
At least not if the location is the flood-prone park.
Farrant put the price tag at $3.733 million.
Mammoth representatives presented plans on how to replace two ballfields with artificial turf as well as a turf football field at a joint meeting of the Iola Council and local school board trustees.
In the case of flooding, the water would be directed north of the football field and west to picnic grounds where larger volume pumps than currently used would direct the water beyond the park’s levee that encompasses it on the north, west and south.
Seth Soto, a Mammoth engineer, noted the flooding of 2007 — 15 inches in three days — and this last April — 6 inches overnight — were 500-year and 100-year floods, respectively.
“I’m not saying that couldn’t happen again,” Soto said, “But statistically, the chances are slim.”
Soto said Mammoth’s design for the park is to accommodate flooding up to 9.1 inches within a 24-hour period, which is the equivalent of a 100-year flood.
Replacing the football field is necessary in order to reroute water to a large retaining pond to its north, Farrant said. Not only would that help the football field but also the Community Recreation Building. Its price tag was $1.4 million.
The softball and baseball diamonds would need to be elevated to give some distance between the fields and the underlying water table of the nearby Neosho River. Determining how much distance currently exists still needs to be established, Soto said, and would be included in Phase 2.
The two ball diamonds come in at $2 million.
When asked what it would cost to build a new ball park from scratch, Farrant said about $6 million.
What could reduce the overall price tag is if the city were successful in winning a grant to address flood mitigation, if the city and school district pursue the project.
Mayor Steve French appeared enthused.
