There is a rusting culvert under Depot Road that floods every third spring, and I have now watched four separate bodies commission four separate studies of it. Each study says roughly the same thing. Each study costs money. And each study ends up in the same drawer because no single office is willing to say the words “this is mine to fix.”
The cost of a hot potato
Passing responsibility around is not free. It looks free, because no line item ever reads “indecision,” but the valley pays for it anyway:
- The road crew patches the same washout every year on overtime
- Two businesses near the low point now carry flood riders on their insurance
- The fourth study, like the three before it, will be outdated before anyone acts on it
I am not arguing that the culvert is simple. Drainage rarely is. Part of the pipe sits under county right-of-way and part under a township easement, and the water district has an opinion about the outflow. But complexity is a reason to assign an owner, not an excuse to avoid one.
Here is my modest proposal: at the next joint session, someone with the authority to be embarrassed should put their name on this. Not a committee. A person. Give them a deadline and a small budget, and let the rest of us stop attending meetings about a pipe.
Related: Opinion & Columns · why the valley needs a sidewalk
Further reading: What a culvert does
