Residents plead county commissioners for help with drainage

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After the Howard County Commissioners completed the tasks on their July 7 agenda, they opened the floor for comment. What they got caught their attention. Residents from the Cotswold Hills subdivision approached the county, demanding answers for flooding that has afflicted the neighborhood for the past year.

The neighborhood, located at the far southwest corner of the city of Kokomo, has experienced modest growth over the past decade, and with those developments came infrastructure changes. One in particular, according to Cotswold Hills resident Josh Cochran, has turned his home along Northampton Drive into a living nightmare.

Flood waters rush through the subdivision’s drainage system, routinely overwhelming it and filling Cochran’s walk-in basement nearly every time it rains.

“I moved into my house in 2016, and at that point, my sump pump was dry as a bone,” said Cochran. “Fast forward to 2024, and my sump has a hard time keeping up.”

The angered resident approached the Howard County Surveyor’s office for answers. Cochran said Surveyor Greg Lake told him an adjacent farmer had tolerated floods in his fields for more than 20 years and was allowed to install a 24-inch drainage pipe under Dixon Road to relieve the condition.

The result was introducing those floodwaters to Cotswold Hills.

“A new 24-inch pipe goes under Dixon and into our pond,” said Cochran. “But technically, our pond is not a pond. It's part of the drainage ditch, and it's like a giant running toilet. It's only six feet deep, and it's always draining under Northampton, into the swale to a small, 12-inch county drain.”

Cochran stated that he was told by Lake that the county is aware that its drain cannot handle the new waterflow, but there is no money to fix the problem.

“I'm overwhelmed on my property with water,” said Cochran. “Everybody got flooded when we got seven inches of rain (June 14, 2025), right? I had water rushing through my finished walk-out basement when we got two and a half inches the week before.

“Now, when we just get a thunderstorm, on top of my regular sump pump, I have to throw in a one-horse transfer pump and run a farm line out to the back of my lot just so I'm not underwater.”

To make matters worse, Cochran’s home isn’t eligible for flood insurance because it doesn’t sit in a floodplain, he said.

“So, I'm here just asking, what next? What do I do?” said Cochran. “Can you guys help me get through this? The way Mr. Lake tells it, it's going to be probably a decade before they can replace that county drain because it's so expensive.

“When everybody's got to pay $10,000 in our green area for a new drain, they're not going to be my friends anymore. They're going to all be mad about that.”

What was unclear during the meeting was the authority overseeing the drainage problem in question. Public drains are the responsibility of the county, and their maintenance is funded through assessments levied on all properties served by the drains. Unfortunately, Howard County hasn’t raised drain/ditch assessments in decades, leaving the funding mechanism woefully insufficient to do proper repairs.

However, private drains are not maintained by the county. Their maintenance and repair is the responsibility of the landowner. Which type of drain it is will dictate how the problem gets addressed.

Cochran’s concerns were amplified by Cotswold Hills Home Owners Association (HOA) president Shelly Layman. Her family has lived in the subdivision since it began development 30 years ago. She confirmed to the commissioners that drainage never had been a problem in the neighborhood until the 24-inch drainage pipe was installed.

“We never had flooding like we’ve seen in the last two years,” said Layman. “Other neighbors are also having issues on the opposite side of the addition. Roads are completely flooded so that you cannot even drive through. People were stranded in their homes because there's only one entrance in and out of this addition.

“The area around this drainage ditch is so eroded that is unsafe to mow around. After the flood in (June), the large pipes exiting on the north side of this pond have completely collapsed. Those drains are so covered over with debris, it is not safe for us to inspect them. There are giant sinkholes now around this pond.”

Layman echoed Cochran’s concerns that the response from county government, to date, has been the lack of funding to address the issue. Commissioner Jack Dodd responded to the concerns by first explaining that the drainage pipe was installed by the state under Ind. 26, but he agreed that the situation needs to be brought before the Howard County Drainage Board.

“I’d like to see this brought up, though there was nothing on the agenda for July,” said Dodd. “I’ve been thinking about this because of what happened in Texas. (Flooding) can be dangerous.”

As a member of the drainage board, Dodd asked Cochran to attend its July 21 meeting to share his concerns. That board meets at 5 p.m., following the regular meeting of the county commissioners on the third floor of the Howard County Administration Center, 220 N. Main St.