To the editor:

The alleviation of flooding along Sunlight Beach Road and adjacent septic systems posing a public health threat was the justification given for undertaking the Useless Bay pump project. This was a strong argument in the permit application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for approval of the project. Despite severe dewatering of the wetlands over the past two winters, there has been no reduction in the flooding along Sunlight Beach Road.

The reason that decreasing the water level in the wetlands from its normal winter level of four feet has not alleviated the flooding on Sunlight Beach Road is straightforward. The lowest sections of Sunlight Beach Road are at an elevation of seven feet. They flood because the land on both sides of the road is higher than the road itself.

Therefore, water that accumulates there can’t drain. Previously, an old wooden culvert drained the area, but it has deteriorated.

Because Diking District 1 Commissioners Ray Gabelein and Steve Arnold are very knowledgeable about drainage issues, it is surprising that they did not know all along that pumping water out of the wetlands would not decrease the flooding along Sunlight Beach Road. Diking District 1 taxpayers living on Sunlight Beach are justifiably upset. They are being forced to pay about 90 percent of the costs of the Useless Bay pump project, with no benefit, and still have to drive around or through the flooded sections of their road.

It will be interesting to see how Diking District 1 justifies the Useless Bay pump project in its resubmission for a new permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Will they continue to fraudulently justify the project on the basis of preventing flooding along Sunlight Beach Road, or will developers Gabelein and Arnold provide the Corps with the real reasons that they want to dewater the wetlands?

John Shepard

Clinton