Drainage authority continues County Ditch 5 hearing; engineer and viewer reports say addition should not increase overtopping

Blue Earth County Drainage Authority on April 8 heard an engineer and a viewer report on a petition to outlet additional lands into County Ditch 5 under Minnesota Statute 103E.401 and continued the public hearing to April 22, 2025, at 9 a.m. in the Second Floor Board of Commissioners room at the Blue Earth County Historic Courthouse.

The hearing opened with a staff review of jurisdictional documents and notice procedures. Ryan Henneker, Blue Earth County drainage staff, told the authority that notice had initially been published incorrectly and that corrected notice would run once a week for three consecutive weeks; he asked the authority to hold the hearing as noticed and to continue it to a date certain so the corrected publication requirement would be satisfied.

The appointed engineer, Jacob Mueller of ISG, reported the hydraulic analysis of the proposed addition to the CD 5 watershed. Mueller said the watershed drains roughly 10,000 acres and is predominantly agricultural with substantial wetlands and open ditch. The analysis looked at the first eight downstream crossings that would be affected and found a roughly 1% reduction in capacity at the outlet overall and a 5.5% reduction in capacity at the immediate outlet crossing at County Road 600/13th Avenue. Mueller said that, based on the wetland storage in the system and the identified overland flow paths, the addition would “increase total runoff volume to a slight degree, but will not increase overtopping frequencies of downstream roads nor impact flooding within the CD 5 system.” He added the outlet would tend to reduce soil moisture for the added acres and that in very large events excess flows would follow established overland paths outside the system.

The appointed viewer, Mark Behrens, explained how a viewer calculates outlet fees and benefit values. Behrens said the Seager parcel in question contains about 61.2 acres by legal record (about 55.8 acres net of road right of way), with approximately 56.78 acres presently inside CD 5 according to the viewer’s boundary; he noted a discrepancy between the petition’s acreage figures and the updated viewer map. Behrens recommended a one‑time outlet fee of $175 per acre for the roughly 99 acres petitioning into CD 5 (totaling $17,325) to buy into the system. For the ongoing benefit assessment he applied a benefit value of $657 per acre to the newly added acres; that adds about $65,000 in benefits for the parcel, bringing the parcel’s total benefits in the system to roughly $98,000, he said. Behrens described how the outlet fee and benefit values are intended to integrate the new acres into payment of future repair and maintenance costs for the system.

No members of the public testified during the hearing. Following presentation of the reports and staff recommendations, the authority voted to accept the jurisdictional documents, hold the hearing as noticed, and continue the public comment portion to April 22, 2025, at 9 a.m. so corrected publication requirements are met. County staff and the appointed consultants will be present at that continued hearing; the authority noted that the April 22 session will be limited to public comment and any new information that emerges.

In related business the Drainage Authority also took several procedural actions: it ordered appointment of viewers to begin redeterminations of benefits for County Ditch 27 and County Ditch 87; it appointed Charles J. Brando of ISG as engineer on a petition to impound, reroute and divert parts of County Ditch 56 (a petition filed on behalf of local petitioners and reported as having received a grant award for a settlement pond in the amount of $596,075 with a 10% local match); and it approved appointing an engineer and viewers to process a petition to remove properties from County Ditch 77 under Minnesota Statute 103E.805. Drainage counsel Kayla (KLR) Van Bruggen of Rinke Noonan reviewed filings on multiple items and found the submitted petitions adequate to proceed.

Why it matters: Outlet petitions and redeterminations re‑allocate long‑term repair and maintenance responsibility and can impose one‑time and recurring costs on landowners. The authority’s acceptance of the engineers’ and viewers’ technical work sets the process toward a formal decision after the continued hearing for County Ditch 5 and begins re‑determination work or review hearings for other ditches.

What’s next: The public comment portion of the County Ditch 5 proceeding is continued to April 22, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. in the Second Floor Board of Commissioners Room at the Blue Earth County Historic Courthouse. The authority has appointed engineers and viewers to prepare reports on Ditches 27, 87, 56 and 77; those reports and any required hearings will appear on future drainage authority agendas.