Board approves easement deal with WE Energies

By Gail Peckler-Dziki
Correspondent

The Village of Salem Lakes Board approved an easement agreement with WE Energies to relocate electric services for the Timber Lane drainage project at Monday’s special board meeting.

The easement is a strip of land 12 feet wide and located in the southeast one-fourth of Section 16.

The electric service will be relocated east of the current location. Timber Lane is near the Salvation Army camp and Center Lake.

The village also has an easement agreement with the camp for a 10-foot wide easement that is 290 feet long for an open drainage ditch. The village will pay the camp $37,000 for this easement. That easement was approved at the June 10 regular board meeting.

The soil borings for the stormwater project revealed peat moss throughout the area. Using concrete pipe would require that pylons be placed every two feet to support the pipes, adding $700,000 to the project.

Before the soil boring that revealed the peat moss, the project had an estimated cost of $1,149,602.

Broken down, $853,565 is for construction, $168,003 is for engineering and administrative costs and $128,034 is for contingencies.

Interim Administrator Mike Murdock explained in an email, “Further engineering showed we could use a wide-open ditch along the Salvation Army property to convey the water. So we started working with the Salvation Army to obtain a drainage easement.”

The village is waiting for approval from the Department of Natural Resources to disturb wetland to place the ditch in the easement deal with the camp.

Murdock said the village wouldn’t have final costs until word from the DNR is received.

“There are several homes that deal with flooding issues, even during smaller rain events in that area,” Murdock said.

The village is working with the DNR for a wetland permit for the disturbance during the construction and a new grass swale.

Murdock said he expects that permit to arrive soon.

“The project already is out to bid,” he said.

Part of that DNR permit required the village to purchase a half-acre of property for wetland mitigation. That purchase cost the village $35,000, below the original estimate of $50,000.

“There was no available land in this area to add to the required DNR wetland bank,” Murdock said. “The property is farther north but fulfills the DNR requirement.”


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