Water worries: Elkhart County Landfill pond drains into neighbors property - WSBT-TV

Water worries: Elkhart County Landfill pond drains into neighbors property

A storm water pond for the Elkhart County Landfill had an overflow pipe plugged, and to reach the pipe, water needed to be drained.

However, the drained water, flooded a river of a nearby property.

Terry Kraucunas and her husband who live next to the landfill.

They said they were surprised when they found thousands of gallons of water flooding through their property via a privately owned river and pond.

Kraucunas knew immediately it was coming from the landfill property.

Which is something she has kept an eye on for the last few months.

"We fully expected that they would pump the water out through hard sources like trucks or vehicles. We did not expect they would pump it out onto our land, or allow it to flow onto our land and that's what the surprise was." said Terry Kraucunas, water released into her property."

WSBT called the manager of the landfill, John Bowers, who said water tests were done by Indiana Department of Environmental Management and those came back as acceptable, echosing this water was just rain water.

We are working to find out what tests were done by IDEM and if any more are expected.

Terry, however, is worried about the long term impacts of this unexpected water, as the area is on federally protected wetlands.

"I Have another concern for the city of Elkhart as well. This is one of those water protected areas. There's posted signs right down the road...." said Kraucunas "frogs and fish and really nice stuff out here and to think that that might be destroyed because of thoughtlessness." said Kraucunas."

The land fill manager says, this area is a storm water pond and the draining was done to avoid catastrophe.

"it could have been more of a catastrophic amount of water that could have, you know, like if it would have topped and broke in a more catastrophic way, they would have got a larger volume instead of the controlled release evcen though it was a lot of water.. it was still controlled." said John Bowers, Elkhart County Landfill Manager."

The manager of the landfill did say he apologized to the neighbors about not giving them a heads up.

He is hoping this pipe will be repaired by Tuesday.