Lighthouse Creek Drain
The Lighthouse Creek Drain is located in Berrien County and flows through the City of New Buffalo before exiting into Lake Michigan. It encompasses a 3.4-square-mile watershed and drains a mix of rural and residential lands.
A major storm event hit the City of New Buffalo on Halloween of 2008 and caused major flood damage to the City’s Drinking Water Treatment Plant including its backwash basin. Other areas of the city experienced major damage to property as well.
The City hired a consulting firm to identify a fix for the flooding at the water treatment plant, and the final recommendation was to construct a nine-foot flood wall around the City’s backwash ponds fixing an undersized culver downstream under Water Street. The price tag to construct this solution was nearly $7 million, which prompted the City to ask the Berrien County Drain Commissioner for other possible solutions. The Berrien County Drain Commissioner suggested hiring Spicer Group to conduct a study of the problem and identify any other possible solutions that might be an option as well as the possibility of creating a drainage district for the Lighthouse Creek Drain.
The project team of Spicer Group and the Berrien County approached the project by looking at the entire watershed to identify areas that could be improved to alleviate the downstream flooding. After completing a hydraulic model of the entire watershed, the project team noted that a large wetland complex downstream of the water treatment plant could play a major role in reducing the flooding. Based on the project team’s findings, the City agreed to move forward with establishing a drainage district, and the Berrien County Drain Commissioner held a Board of Determination Meeting in June 2014 where information was presented to the public about the results of the project team’s study and recommended solutions. The project team presented solutions that included replacing an undersized culvert under Water Street, stabilizing the channel along the creek and increasing storm water detention to slow the amount of storm water flowing downstream.
