HUNTINGTON ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” Frequent flooding of the Ritter Park upper tennis courts was a discussion topic during the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District board meeting last month.
Alan Morrison, chair of the park board, updated members on steps being taken to address silt buildup in the tennis court drains that causes them to clog and flood the upper tennis courts. Morrison said the drain lines have approximately 50% silt buildup.
Days before the July 23 meeting, Morrison said the upper tennis courts had flooded for the second time in about two or three weeks. The courts were just cleaned from the last flood and got flooded again, he said. Damage outside of the fence, silt buildup and a drain collapsing outside of the fence has caused concern about the course as a whole, Morrison said.
The course is playable at the time, but Morrison said the Huntington Stormwater Utility was inspecting the drain the next day to check its condition. Executive Director Kathy McKenna said Monday that the utility was able to run its camera through the drain. GHPRD is sending the footage to a contractor for review, she said.
Morrison said there is an approximately 24-inch line that runs underneath the center of the tennis courts that was put in during construction of the other four courts. There is a manhole just north of that, near court 11, and it goes on to Fourpole Creek, he said.
The line was undersized at construction due to cost savings, he said. It was originally supposed to be 30 or 36 inches.
Morrison said the courts have been flooded approximately 15 times over the last 10 years.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œAbout 10 years ago, maybe, due to repetitive flooding, we contracted and paid for a new 36-inch drain line from the same starting point to the east of the courts on the hill side all the way to the creek and that worked well for a long time,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Morrison said. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œBoth of those lines now have remarkable ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” maybe 50% ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” silt buildup and that is whatÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s causing the problem with the courts during incredible rains.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
Morrison said GHPRD members met with the stormwater utility days before the meeting and they were very helpful. They informed Morrison and others that there wasnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t much the park board could do about reducing what comes down off the hill, but there is work it can do to slow water down near the courts, such as cleaning existing culverts, he said.
GHPRD will work with contractors to determine the best way to go about fixing the issue, he said.
Although he believes the tennis courts will stay playable throughout the process of relieving these issues, Morrison said if the park board receives bad news about the upper four tennis courts that would require work to be completed on them this fall ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” chances of which he said he believes are slim ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” itÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s his recommendation to postpone the addition of new pickleball courts, he said.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œWe are going to stay on top of it on a daily basis but to lose four courts, tennis courts on the top and then right at the face of that convert two of the tennis courts to pickleball courts would be very ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” I think would be very short-sighted and I would come back to the board and ask that we postpone that move until we have all seven of our tennis courts ready to play,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Morrison said.
