Luverne City Council addresses flood clean-up, industrial park, fuel tanks

Flood cleanup in the Luverne City Park, Riverside Park and Redbird Field was complete in time for Saturday’s Tri-State Band Festival Saturday.
Luverne City Administrator John Call updated council members at their Tuesday night meeting on flood cleanup, costs and details.
The Sept. 11 flooding caused about $77,000 worth of damage in the parks, considering fence repair, extra labor costs, some grass reseeding and removal of debris. It’s possible that disaster aid will cover about 75 percent of those costs.
Somewhere between 10 and 20 truckloads of sand were hauled out, but that’s mild compared with the 300 truckloads hauled in the Father’s Day flood of 2014.
Call discussed the difference between the most recent flood and the one in 2014 wasn’t the amount of floodwater that came through, but rather the duration the floodwaters remained.
The Sept. 11 waters receded quickly, which meant there was minimal damage to grass and turf.
 
Old fuel tanks removed at airport
At Tuesday’s meeting the council approved a $25,000 payment to Seneca Companies for removal of the old underground fuel system.
Seneca is the contractor that installed the new Fuel Farm for the Luverne Airport this year.
In the process of removing the old tanks, soil testing revealed a small amount of contaminated soil (five wheelbarrows) that is being disposed of at a certified landfill.
The city will apply to the Department of Health for a $10,000 grant to help with the cost of the removal of the underground tank.
 
Paving nearly complete in industrial park
At their Tuesday meeting council members also approved a $387,000 payment to Henning Construction, Inc. for recent work on the industrial park expansion.
Over the course of the last few months Henning Construction has been finishing the work for the Industrial Park Expansion;
After installing underground utilities (water, sewer, and storm sewer) during the last construction, Henning has been focused this season on paving Koehn, Dakota, and Minnesota avenues.
The work is approximately 80 percent complete, with the paving sub-contractor planning to finish by the end of September.
The City of Luverne received a $1.9 million grant from the State of Minnesota to assist in Luverne’s $2.6 million cost of putting all utilities into the Industrial Park, along with all of the paving and curb and gutter on the adjacent streets.
Once the work is complete, the city can submit the expenses for reimbursement.