Drainage board approves discharge permit for Amazon-area site after company agrees to extra monitoring

St. Joseph County — The St. Joseph County Drainage Board voted May 4 to approve a permit allowing discharge from a construction site after the applicant reduced its requested peak rate and pledged stepped-up monitoring and data sharing.

A company representative speaking for AWS, Walbridge and Frady Construction said the revised application sets a reduced maximum discharge of 1,300,000 gallons per hour — approximately 3,600,000 gallons per day — a roughly 10% reduction from the earlier request. The representative said the companies have complied with prior permits since permitted discharge began in October 2024 and accepted the board's condition that the board can suspend discharge if it believes property or landowners downstream could be harmed. "We've maintained full transparency with the drainage board and have provided any data related to discharge…