Nicollet County drainage authority moves forward with improvement petition for County Ditch 38A after preliminary engineer report and DNR advisory

The Nicollet County Drainage Authority voted on Feb. 2025 to proceed with an improvement petition for two tile segments of County Ditch 38A after hearing the preliminary engineer's report from Houston Engineering and an advisory letter from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

The petition covers two portions of tile on CD 38A — Branch 4 (with a lateral B) and Branch 1 Lateral D (including Spur 1) — located in Cortland Township southwest of Swan Lake. Chris Otterness, the project engineer from Houston Engineering, told the authority the drainage area for the two segments is about 425 acres and that the existing tile is old, damaged and “past its functional life.” He said the proposal would replace broken concrete and other deteriorated tile with new dual-wall polyethylene pipe, increase sized segments in places (up to 24 inches) and offset new lines approximately 10–15 feet from existing tile to avoid constructability issues.

Otterness said the preferred design aims to achieve a 0.5-inch drainage coefficient, the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) guideline commonly used for corn and soybean ground, so that fields will drain more quickly following typical rain events. “We do…