Supervisors get details on bioretention project

The Calhoun County Board of Supervisors postponed approval of a temporary easement with the City of Rockwell City at the supervisors’ meeting June 12, while they awaited more information about the project the easement will allow.
The project is the installation of a bioretention cell – essentially, a patch of native flowers and grasses, to which storm water is directed. The plants and the layers of rocks and soil underneath their roots, help to slow the water as it infiltrates the ground. The Rockwell City Council opted last year to include the project in the larger infrastructure project around the courthouse square.
Calhoun County Assistant Attorney Ben Meyer brought the temporary easement, drafted by the Rockwell City attorney, to the supervisors at their June 12 meeting. He said he had some concern that the easement was temporary but had no ending date, and that the easement didn’t make clear that city officials, not county workers, would be responsible for maintaining the bioretention cell.
The supervisors called Rockwell City Clerk Kelly Smidt for more information.
“What we’re concerned about, one, we don’t really understand how this works,” Supervisors Chairman Mike Cooper said. 
Read more in the June 22 edition.