MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - The Ingham County Drain Commissioner's Office held a Public Scope Meeting for the Smith Consolidate Drain on Monday, May 2.

"The scope meeting is a meeting that's not required under the law, but the Drain Commissioner likes to hold them for the purpose of getting the thoughts of the land owners, of the public, others who are affected by the drain project," Deputy Drain Commissioner Carla Clos said. "It was kind of lightly attended. I think we had abut 35 to 40 folks who signed in, but we had people who were very interested in the project, so that's always good."

The project to improve the Smith Drain, which has a pipe running underneath Jolly Road, has been ongoing since December 15, 2015, when the Board of Determination found that maintenance was necessary.

The Drain Commissioner's Office invited owners of the land and government officials in order to hear the property owner's opinion on the engineer's plan and so that the resident would be aware of what would happen.

"We present the alternatives of the proposed project to get (people's) reactions," Clos said. "And it's also an opportunity if maybe there is a problem that we weren't aware of, that they can bring to our attention before we kind of finalize the plans and go to bid."

Clos said one of the biggest interests at the meeting was how much this improvement would cost.

"We won't have that information until of course we finalize the project and put it out to bid and get some contractors who bid on the project, then we'll know what it's going to cost," Clos said.

Despite that uncertainty, Clos said people's reactions were generally positive.

"I think a lot of people learned for the first time the significant flooding issues within the district. I'm not sure everybody was aware of that," she said.

According to Clos, the flood that the Drain Commissioner's office is aware is "primarily in the commercial corridor along Jolly Road, Okemos Road, University Park and around those areas.

"Some of the residential folks that might live further north in some of the subdivisions off of Okemos Road may not have seen those roads flood," Clos said. "There has been water across Jolly Road and Okemos Road, but if you're not there during the big storm events, you might not be aware of the flooding issue."

For this reason and the fact that pipe under Jolly Road was in "bad shape," Clos said that the public was drawn to the issue.

"There's a section lost in the pipe, so people seemed very attentive to the whole presentation," Clos said. "I don't think they had many questions mostly because they could see there was a real need and the proposed project seems to address the needs."

The Drainage District's engineer "has been developing preliminary design concepts" and ways that the improvements can be successfully implemented, according to a letter by Ingham County Drain Commissioner Patrick Lindemann to a property owner with land within the Smith Consolidated Drain Drainage District.

With current constructions and detours on the Okemos bridge and around Meridian Township, Clos said the Drain Commissioner's Office wanted people to understand that the project would start after the Okemos bridge project is completed, and end in August.

"We will commence construction, depending upon the financing, after July 4, and we want to have the Jolly Road part of the work done before Okemos schools start out at the end of August, and also before MSU's first home football game," Clos said. "A lot of the people get off at the Okemos Road exit and use Jolly to get either over to MSU or to Okemos schools. So we want to make sure we get it done, so we're not inconveniencing everybody when they start their school year."

To not further inconvenience residents, the Drain Commissioner's office will not shut down Jolly Road during construction.

"We are going to do a half-width construction, which means we will install the pipe on half the road and we will put one westbound and one eastbound lane on the other half of the road," Clos said. "When we have that completed, then we will open up that side and have one westbound and one eastbound lane on the north side of Jolly road."

Jolly Road will stay in service throughout the entirety of the project.

"Everybody is a little sensitive about that, because these detours take a lot of extra time and that's one thing everybody here is short on," Clos said.