MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - The economy has affected all of us in numerous ways, but what we might forget is how crucial it is to our environment.

Recently, Ember Oaks Drainage District has not been able to get the financial attention it requires
"The developer had started a subdivision, and the economy tanked and he just didn't start the storm water system. We wound up with excessive amounts of water going underneath the railroad tracks," said Ingham County Drain Commissioner Patrick Lindemann.

Normally, storm water shouldn't a problem, however the pressure in this area has cause some damage.

"Railroad tracks have a certain sized tube that comes underneath them and it shoots like a fire hose. If you can imagine the damage that a fire hose can do. Once you start generating excess amounts of runoff off the piece of property, you have to have a place for it to flow until it gets to the river, if you don't it's just going to ruin everything in it's path," said Commissioner Lindemann.

Although this project has not been funded until now, it has not been neglected

"We made an attempt years ago to try and get this fixed, and so on and so forth and it took a lot longer than we though to get the easements, but now that the easements are in place, we're going to fix it," said Commissioner Lindemann. "We've worked with the parks board, we've also worked with the preservation board to make sure that the types of vegetation that we're using and all of that conforms with the long term plan for that land is. Once it's done, it should be able to handle the flows of water coming from the south underneath the railroad tracks and do no harm at that point."

The $895,000 project will take about five weeks to complete and will be funded by the road commission, the railroad, the Meridian Township Board and the developer who owns the land. There will be a presentation about the project at the July 9th Township Board meeting.