Page 30 The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch May 17, 2013 Regional Digest Water Tower Lauded SALISBURY – Continuing a recent trend of collaboration, the city of Salisbury and Salisbury University this week held a joint ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new elevated water tower on the south side of town at Milford Street near the campus. The new tower will eventually replace the aging tower on College Ave. that has outlived its usefulness. The work was recently completed by Caldwell Tanks of Louisville, Ky. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Tuesday with representatives from the city of Salisbury and the university on hand. “Recently, the university’s new downtown art gallery had a successful opening during the Salisbury Festival and the gallery will contribute to the continued development of the Arts and Entertainment District,” said SU President Janet Dudley-Eshbach this week. “SU’s new Patricia R. Guerreri Academic Commons, with a generous gift from the Guerreri Family Foundation, will serve the greater community as well and have a positive impact on the economy. This water tower project is yet another successful city-university collaboration.” Grant Sought To Fund Stormwater Project By SHAWN J. SOPER NEWS EDITOR Salisbury Loses Director SALISBURY – Salisbury officials this week announced Public Works Director Teresa Gardner is leaving her post to take a position in Virginia and will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Public Works Director Amanda Pollack. Mayor James Ireton Jr. appointed Pollack to serve as interim-director of Public Works until a national search can be undertaken. In Virginia, Gardner will be serving both the Culpeper and Staunton districts as the regional traffic engineer. “This has been a broadening experience for me, and I wish everyone in the City of Salisbury organization much success in the future,” she said. “Thank you for the opportunity to serve the city and the pleasure to work under this administration.” Meanwhile, Pollack has 17 years of engineering experience. She worked in the private sector for 16 years before starting with Salisbury in July 2012. Pollack is a licensed professional engineer in Maryland and Delaware. Her specialties are water, wastewater and municipal engineering. Ireton thanked Gardner for her service and dedication to the city, most especially her work during the Wastewater Treatment Plant lawsuit and wishes her well on her future endeavors. BERLIN – Officials this week approved the application for the latest phase of a state grant to address the ongoing problems in certain flood-prone areas of the town. The Mayor and Council on Monday approved an application for a state-issued Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) totaling around $800,000 for fiscal year to begin an ambitious stormwater management plan that could be a test case of sorts for other municipalities across Maryland. The application, if accepted, will be the third leg in a series of CDBG requests totaling over $1.9 million. The other portions of Berlin’s latest series of CDBG grants have been used on other important projects throughout the town including the construction of a wastewater holding pond, or lagoon, at the Five Mile Branch spray irrigation site and the complete remodeling of the public restrooms in Town Hall in the center of Berlin. The third phase in the latest series of state grants will be used, if approved, for the beginning of the town’s multi-year, multi-faceted stormwater management plan. The first leg of that ambitious plan would improve the flow of stormwater in the area of Hudson’s Branch in general, and more specifically install a new culvert under Flower Street in an area prone to heavy flooding in even a modest weather event. “I think we’re all keenly aware of Berlin’s flooding problems,” said Deputy Town Administrator Mary Bohlen. “This would address all areas affected by Hudson’s Branch. The culvert at Flower Street is currently undersized and this would be a first step in the process to alleviate the flooding problems.” Among the areas that could see initial relief from flooding by replacing the undersized culvert at Flower Street include Franklin Avenue, Cedar Avenue and Maple Avenue, for example. Stormwater engineer Darryl Cole explained the project needed to begin somewhere and the Flower Street culvert represented a good jumping off point. “The improvements at that location will improve the flow further upstream,” he said. “There is a bottleneck there, and everything that happens further upstream is affected by it. There is a lot of water trying to go through a very small area.” Mayor Gee Williams assured all of the residents of the town that starting a town-wide stormwater management plan at the known trouble spot at Flower Street made the most sense. “This is going to be a three-year project and we have to start somewhere,” he said. “Showell Street is also at the top of the list. This is what the engineers have told us will do the most good for the least amount of money. This is not a one-time thing. We’re systematically going to fix all of the trouble areas in the town.” Williams said Berlin has the opportunity, or the misfortune perhaps, of being one of the first to aggressively fix its stormwater management problems. “This problem is so big all over the country and everybody is a little intimidated because they want to fix everything all at once,” he said. “We’re going to be at the front of the line. It’s not like we’re going to be able to go to other towns and ask how they did it. Other towns are going to be looking to us for advice for the next 20 years.” The stormwater management plan is just a portion of the town’s most recent CDBG grant package. Creating the holding lagoon at the Five Mile Branch spray irrigation site was a $5 million project paid for in part by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) at $3 million, the CDBG at $600,000 and the town at $182,000. The storage lagoon covers about eight acres and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The other portion of the CDBG funds is being used to completely restore the dilapidated old public restrooms at Town Hall on William Street. Of the estimated $114,328 total cost of the project, the CDBG grant is covering $65,500. “They weren’t the most pleasant of places to send the visitors to our special events,” said Bohlen. “They were outdated, hard to keep clean and a constant problem with maintenance.” Bohlen explained the old fixtures were torn out and completely replaced with state-of-the-art fixtures. The old facilities were essentially demolished completely and the undersized and outdated plumbing and drainage systems were completely replaced. “They are much, much better,” said Williams. “They are no longer a place you’d be ashamed to send your family and friends.” One resident in attendance asked the council to install new signage at different locations around Berlin to direct visitors to the new and improved public restrooms. Williams said they would take it under consideration, but said many of the special event programs include maps of where restrooms and other town amenities are located. He also said most visitors these days are armed with smart phones that direct people where to go for public services. Council Throws Support Behind Trail Initiative By SHAWN J. SOPER NEWS EDITOR Boat Safety Week Begins OCEAN CITY – Maryland Natural Resources Police (NRP) SEE NEXT PAGE BERLIN – The ongoing effort to create a network of hiking and biking trails in and around Berlin inched closer to fruition this week when the Mayor and Council approved the Walkable-Bikable Berlin master plan on Tuesday. In 2011, the Lower Shore Land Trust, along with residents, town agencies and other stakeholders first floated the idea of creating a more pedestrian- and bicyclefriendly Berlin and connecting the town to a network of existing and future trails and other hiking and biking infrastructure in the area. In the months since, the cooperating agencies and individuals have been working on a master plan for a Walkable-Bikable Berlin, and the Mayor and Council on Monday approved the document, which could accelerate the program. While the plan is largely con- ceptual at this point, the long-term goal is to create a network of safe hiking and biking areas throughout the town, allowing residents and visitors to safely access shopping, restaurants, galleries and town services without getting in their cars and searching for parking. The benefits are at least twofold in that it will encourage healthy alternatives for travel in and around Berlin while reducing emissions and improving the overall environment. The plan calls for the creation of a “green belt” of sorts around the town’s perimeter to allow hiking and biking residents to easily access the downtown areas and other destinations. The plan also calls for connecting to existing and future local, state and federal trail systems, creating a larger transportation network. For example, one of the first legs of the plan calls for connect- ing Berlin to Assateague Island along Route 611 to Route 346 and ultimately into the town. Mayor Gee Williams said the plan has enormous potential but the problem will likely always be how to get across Route 113. In the meantime, the plan calls for creating sidewalks or bike lanes when possible to fill in the gaps for safe biking and hiking. “We’ve discussed this for well over a year, and I haven’t heard anybody against this idea,” he said. “This seems to have universal appeal.” Williams said there are plenty examples of successful hiking and biking trails, most notably in Europe where bicycles are a primary mode of transportation. “I hope we’re all around long enough to see this because this has the potential to be a huge benefit for Berlin,” he said. “We have an obligation to make that happen here.”