Marnico Village residents are having problems with water run-off.
Situated off of U.S. 67 to the west of Jacksonville, the group of homes is experiencing back up in their sewer system.
The new president of the Marnico Betterment Association, Luke Marquardt, Jr. brought a petition to the Morgan County Commissioners this morning asking that the special service area tax assessed to residents of Marnico Village be used to fix the ditches to allow for better drainage: “Our ditches have not been maintained. The water is actually going into our sewer, and it’s overloading our lagoon tremendously. Since we don’t have ditches that run off, the water sits there. [It is causing] our roads to just fall apart. Everybody drives by one another so the road breaks off and slides away. We would like to possibly use some of the [SSA tax] money or have something done to get our water run off fixed.”
Marquardt says he’s not received any help or response from Road District #6 Commissioner Roger Ore when he’s brought the problem to him for answers.
Marquardt believes that if the problem persists, residents of Marnico Village are going to lose their property. According to Marquardt, the SSA Tax assessed by the county is used to pay the village’s electric bill for the year and for an oil and chip program for the village’s roads.
Marquardt says oil and chipping the roads does no good unless the drainage problem is fixed: “There is no sense of putting oil and chip on the roads if it’s going to erode because the water is just sitting there. Like I said, the water is not flowing and it’s going into our lagoon system and our sewer system and overloading it. Our back wall [to our lagoon] could possibly just [break] and then nobody out there would have sewer. Then, our land would be worth nothing because we can’t put septic tanks in.”
The county commissioners said they would facilitate a meeting between County Engineer Matt Coultas, Ore, Marquardt and someone from the commission to come up with a solution and answer the questions about the SSA funds in the coming weeks.