Township petitions county over chronic flooding at Evergreen Cemetery; first hearing set for Sept. 8

Barb Lewis, president of the board of county commissioners, opened a video viewing on a drainage petition filed by the Berlin Township trustees for the Evergreen Cemetery watershed and said no testimony or decisions would be taken during the viewing.

The petition, explained Trustee Ron Bullard, was filed because a field tile installed roughly 6 feet deep to drain the cemetery is blocked and the cemetery sits in a low, heavy-clay area that holds water. "When we dig a grave, in the earlier part of the year, it will fill up with water very quickly," Bullard said. He described frequent pumping during burials and instances of grave walls collapsing: "Sometimes the walls will fall in just due to the amount of water in the soil." Bullard said the township does not own access to the drainage outlet and that part of the original cemetery parcel was sold decades ago, removing physical access to the outlet.

Brett Bacon of the Soil and Water Conservation District told commissioners the project contains "a lot of unknowns" and that the video viewing was intended to give the board an overview of the area. Bacon said he is not yet sure of the best, least-cost outlet or the final watershed boundary and that he plans to conduct an on-site survey and a walk of the area before the first hearing so the engineer's report can be as accurate as possible. "This is really gonna be a case that when we go out and start our survey, our detailed on-site investigation, we may identify a better path for the improvement," Bacon said.

Commission President Barb Lewis and other commissioners participated in the viewing while Bullard and other trustees pointed out features on the map and in the video, including a nearby Peachblow/Peach Blow ditch and a noted blocked field tile. Bullard said the township was given part of the cemetery by the courts around 2019–2020 and that after years of private ownership the township discovered the scale of the drainage problems only recently. "The cemetery was actually 2 pieces of ground," Bullard said; "we lost any access to be able to open up the tiles to drain the water out."

The board recorded that the viewing itself is informational; no testimony was taken and no decisions were made at that time. Commissioners noted that landowner testimony and the engineer's report are scheduled to be heard at the first formal hearing on the petition, which is set for Monday, Sept. 8 at 10 a.m. in the first hearing on the petition. Bacon said he had attempted to include all potentially affected properties in the petition paperwork but that the list may be narrowed as the design and survey work proceed.

The session closed after the viewing; commissioners said they had no other business at the meeting.

The next formal step is the Sept. 8 hearing, when landowners may give testimony for or against the petition and the engineer will present a report to the Board of County Commissioners.