Neighbors rankled by removal of Cedar Rapids pond for stormwater detention basin

CEDAR RAPIDS - Earlier this week Karl Burgess, with Schrader Excavating & Grading of Walford, was manning a high powered water pump draining a southwest neighborhood pond some estimate to be 14 feet deep in places.

Little did Burgess realize he was entering a spat between citizens and the city over the pond's removal. Neighbors, who have visited the pond and surrounding woods since the 1990s as a place for fishing or a peaceful walk, are lamenting the loss of their refuge.

'I'm just here to baby-sit the pump,” Burgess said. 'I'm just doing my job. I don't know what the plans are.”

The pond is secluded on a few acres surrounded by backsides of homes just north of Wilson Avenue SW between 18th Street SW and Balsam Drive SW.

Trees already have been removed and the pond will be dug out in favor of a larger, deeper basin. Neighbors learned once the pond is drained, the remaining fish will be buried to avoid spreading disease.

Schrader was hired in January for the $288,000 city project to construct what's called a regional stormwater detention basin. The regional basin - much larger but ideally more efficient than the typical neighborhood basin in Cedar Rapids - is designed to capture runoff from 94 acres to the north and west and release it slowly, mitigating flooding downstream. The project is due for completion by the end of August.

The loss of the pond shouldn't come as a surprise after neighborhood meetings and mailings, one neighbor said.

'We knew they were going to do this,” said Jim Stolba, 67, whose backyard abuts the pond. 'We weren't happy with it and wanted to save it. We went around with a petition. It's funny people are coming out against it now. If they wanted to raise a stink about it, they should have been on board with us a few years ago.”

Stolba, who for years has mowed around the pond and a trail through the tall grass, along with another neighbor, said he accepts the project and just wants to see it done quickly.

Other residents said they've given up the fight but remain miffed.

'We wanted to move out to the country, but have the kids go to school in the city,” said Chris Dinzy, who lives in a home next to the pond and also mows. 'This is the best we could do. It's the country in the city.”

Dinzy was among the neighbors pushing back, urging the city to find another option or convert it into a park. He was especially disappointed when crews refused to save a tree with a three foot wide trunk, one of the biggest around the pond.

Neighbors were told the city didn't want the obligation of maintaining another park and foresaw the area as a detention basin, he said.

The whole concept befuddled some. Why was the city removing the pond for a basin that will take on water anyway?

'It didn't make sense to any of us,” Dinzy said.

Added, Laurie Church, 61, who has been bringing her two grandkids for fishing and frogging, 'I don't understand why there's not a way to incorporate the pond into the new plans.”

The man-made pond was built in the early 1990s. The 2.43 acres with the pond was dedicated to the city in 1999 for stormwater management and the city purchased additional surrounding land in the years since to get the 3.5 acres needed for the basin, said Sara Baughman, a spokeswoman for the utility department.

'The pond is elevated,” said Sandy Pumphrey, Cedar Rapids flood mitigation engineer. 'It sits up in the air compared to the flow going through the site. You have to get much much lower to get it to be effective. The pond there today has not had any stormwater benefits.”

New homes have come online in the area and other homes and commercial space built before the city required stormwater management has necessitated the basin, he said. Downstream areas such as along Third Avenue SW and Rockford Road SW experience flooding in part because of water flowing from this area, he said.

The city is constructing wetlands at Seminole Valley Park to replace the lost wetland in this southwest neighborhood, as required by the Army Corps of Engineers, he said. Around the new detention basin, the city plans to plant 30 trees and native grasses, he said.

'We are doing our best to put back as naturally as was there before,” Pumphrey said.

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