Drainage Project at Cozy Lake School Almost Complete

Jefferson Township is currently at work on a drainage project at that will help to eliminate flooding on Windsor Drive in Oak Ridge. The work is about 65 percent done now, according to township officials, and is on track to be completed by Labor Day, before school begins.

Flooding on Windsor Drive has become a problem due to different issues, including run-off from a field at Cozy Lake School and a waste water treatment system that the state Department of Environmental Protection made the board of education install at Cozy Lake School, according to James Leach, Jefferson Township’s business administrator.

“The state made the board put the waste water system in based on statistics they have that school children use 15 gallons of water per day per student. Apparently that’s not true in grammar schools, where kids only use about two or three gallons of water per day per kid,” Leach said.

Then the school got tied into the sewer treatment at the Water’s Edge development, with a force main running to the school.

“A force main means that the water is pumped, not gravity fed, and this just aggravated the problem,” Leach said. “The road kept getting flooded. Then the town put in a pump to control the water level in a pond at the end of Windsor Drive. The current project is to direct the water in a different way to alleviate the flooding.”

The town is doing the project using its own labor and materials, according to Leach.

“After the project is done, we’ll have a handle on the cost and we will sit down with the Board of Education and discuss costs,” Leach said. “The project is being done to protect the road and the homes on it, and to save everyone a lot of aggravation.”