Collaborative sustainability leads to drainage improvement project for St. Tim’s neighborhood
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 27, 2024
St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church leaders announced to members on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, the sale of land to assist in downstream drainage control measures. A portion of the land sold to the city government in October will aid in sustaining downstream communities near the church located at 2601 E. Thompson Rd., Indianapolis, Ind. The wardens, clergy, vestry and Diocese have been involved for several months to assist this project.
Construction operations will be seen when local government officials authorize the project. St. Timothy’s will not have authority over that work. Some staging and work may involve equipment on the St. Timothy’s property.
The land sale encompasses a portion of the land on the west side of the church buildings between the Nazarene Church buildings and St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church. The land has been part of the St. Timothy’s footprint since the 1960s. St. Timothy’s buildings and land are owned by The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, which assists in ongoing parochial support to the congregation. The Diocese brokered the land sale with local government officials and deposited most of the proceeds into an investment savings account to benefit the congregation. The savings account is directed by the leadership of the church.
The city’s project is designed to detain excess water in 10-year flood events, which have happened several times in the previous 25 years. In the past, water sometimes pooled in the church parking lot, side yards, front yard and entered the back doors in the building and parish halls. The chief reason for the project, however, is to temporarily detain water from overflowing into Dodrill Creek. Water from ground higher than St. Timothy’s drains to the church property via ditches and swales toward Dodrill Creek. All neighborhoods north of the church have experienced flooding.
High water has also reached the swale between the church parking lot and the homes east of the church physical plant. Preventing rising water from leaving the land adjacent to the church buildings will ultimately assist in erosion prevention. Erosion of the creek banks in the previous decades has cut away land close to the church buildings. The erosion might endanger the parish buildings, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Dec. 2, 2020) and Indiana Register of Historic Sites and Structures (Oct. 21, 2020).
The drainage project will allow water to be detained for several days before being released. Construction will result in what is typically a dry basin, but it will become wet when too much water comes into the land from neighborhoods south of the church. The church will continue to own about 25 percent of the land near the tree thicket at the back of the property. The church continues to own the property east of the creek on which the buildings are sited. The dry basin will have a visibly lower bank than the opposing bank adjacent to the church building.
A slideshow was exhibited to the parish community on Sunday at a luncheon following worship on Gratitude Sunday (Christ the King Sunday, liturgically), which occurred after the parish members made financial pledges for 2025. The slideshow is available as a download by clicking this sentence.
St. Timothy’s parish has invested heavily in projects that create opportunities for environmental sustainability and which impact the community and the neighborhood. In the past ten years, the parish disconnected its septic system and installed a connection to the municipal sewer system. Additionally, the church built and paid for a sewage lift station at the intersection of the church property and Thompson Road, which ordinarily would have resulted in Barret law charges to the neighborhood homeowners.
