The Pigeon Creek Watershed Development Commission met on June 15, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. (Evansville time) with a quorum of four members present. The meeting covered a broad work plan presentation, discussions on regulatory authority, approval of discretionary spending, and updates on ongoing projects including a USGS stream gauge and Lair grant.
The meeting adjourned at 11:55 a.m.
Wait, oh and we're getting online. There we go. All right. I'll repeat myself. But welcome to the Pigeon Creek Watershed Development Commission. It's June 15th, Monday at 10 o'clock in the morning. Evansville time. Karen, could you call to order for the attendance? Christy Johnson here. Cheryl Muskright here. Linda Freeman here. And Karen Barnville. We have a quorum. We've got four. We're four for four, batting a thousand this morning. All right. Um Pledge of Allegiance, please, if you join me. And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice. Okay. Um I'm just gonna let Justin take over from here. Um we're gonna skip ahead uh one item uh we had a little bit of uh scheduling timing issue um this morning. So we're gonna skip ahead to new business and we'll come back to the action item uh and presentation in that regard. Um new business uh we need to have a discussion about how this board and entity want to tackle certain items in regard to development, what uh what criteria we need to have, do we want to have any try to have any influence over the drainage ordinance which is being discussed right now at the county level uh what level of oversight can we have and do we want to have basically there's a lot on the table in that regard, and I would just like to have the board discuss it and see if we can at least try to get some guidance and how we need to move forward. Yeah, and to add to that, I would like to say that uh currently the county drainage ordinance uh which the city uses as well currently. Um there is no um drainage detention for anything that discharges directly into Pigeon Creek or the Ohio River, but mainly obviously the Pigeon Creek uh situation would be more in our realm of things since our first concern with the Pigeon Creek watershed development is flooding. Uh the direct discharge of anything developed along Pigeon Creek can just currently no no uh detainage. I can't remember what the sanction would be. And I'd like to add to that too, this came to our attention um the last few months when we've had some developments that were um being proposed. And in normal cases, um per the drainage ordinance, any additional impervious area over 10,000 square feet or 10,000 square feet and above um has to require or provide retention. Um and like Linda said, um the existing drainage ordinance does not or it does say in 13.04.015 that um it is not required for Pigeon Creek or for the Ohio River. Um in some areas where the the word discharging is in an area where it might not be the largest channel um or might not have the capacity to handle the additional flow at at that particular point. The city engineer is um concerned about that, so we were wanting to um discuss that the possibility of removing that item from the ordinance or the city of Evansville adopting something separately. Um and we are working on our stormwater ordinance, so I'm trying to work out the um how it's all gonna mesh together and stuff, but I I also think that um some of the site plans that come in may impact the creek, like we found one when CIGIC or I mean center point was going across the creek. If we wouldn't have been on site review, we wouldn't have known that, but we feel like in talking to Justice Justin that there may need to be some type of formal process to where when they're dumping into the creek or when they're near the creek, maybe they should file something with the watershed so that we can review it before it's approved. Um that's just what what our thoughts were discussing some of these developments coming in. Yeah. On the center point issue, they were putting they were uh putting up new poles, replacing some poles. Yes, they were they were uh replacing poles, and it was uh it was determined after uh discussion with the engineers at Center Point that um they were gonna span far enough outside that it it really shouldn't be an issue. Um and then also there was another um center point project that went underneath Green River Road on the east side of Green River Road at Hearst Road. Um they were spanning underneath the creek, and um they sent me the plans and I evaluated and I spoke with Karen and spoke with Linda about this at that point. They were going to be like six feet underneath the the uh flow line, the the bottom of the creek basically, and we're going to daylight so far outside of the uh 75 foot right of entry that we have on the creek itself. I I believe it was roughly 100 feet outside of our 75 foot. So we you know, we gave our blessing to it. I don't know if we could have stopped it. I don't know if I don't think we needed to stop it. I think it was pretty mindful in both regards after having the discussion. Um but those are the kinds of things that we need to determine as a group. How does this need to be handled? What steps do need to be taken both on development part and or utility part and on our part? That's kind of what I'm getting at.