Photo by George Lauby Randy Stubbs talks to the county board.

Maxwell Village Board Vice-chairman Randy Stubbs was back before the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners Monday, asking for help dealing with floodwater.

FREE Mobile Banking NOW AVAILABLE!

Stubbs made the same request in 2007.

After heavy rains May 22-23, water stood as high as the doorsteps in a trailer court in southwest Maxwell. More than six inches of rain fell during May, village clerk Nanette King told the Bulletin.

Not only have rains caused flooding, but even a little cloudy weather brings a lot of anxiety, Stubbs said.

The village held an emergency meeting May 28, and afterwards pulled a couple of culverts that were too small or too high to drain south Maxwell. That temporarily helped.

Stubbs asked the county to double the capacity of a culvert under Old Military Road, a main road west of the link highway to I-80.

Also, Stubbs wants the state to clean a ditch along West Maxwell Road, west of the village. The Nebraska Department of Roads has that responsibility. Stubbs asked the county to help persuade the roads department.

State roads workers have done a little cleanout work, but not enough, he said.

“They worked in all the wrong places. They fixed the easy spots,” Stubbs said. “Let me ask you, why doesn’t the state come visit us before they do this sort of work, so we could work together in our mutual interest?”

Last year, water flooded most of the village after 10 inches of rain fell during two weeks. Since then, village workers improved a main ditch on the north side.

“We’re doing all we can,” Stubbs said. “We’re having to deal with millions of cubic feet of county water.”

Other improvements have been bogged down in bureaucracy.

County Commissioner Duane Deterding said he talked with the Nebraska roads department, the Army Corps of Engineers and Union Pacific to get their approval to clean ditches. None of them object to cleaning Bull Ditch, a ditch that drains water from west of Maxwell into the Platte River.

Bull Ditch is the first line of Maxwell's defense against floods, Stubbs said. This year, it is third on the village's fix-it list.

Deterding also expressed frustration. He said he could make a lot of improvements with a backhoe in one afternoon.

But Deputy County Attorney Joe Wright said the county should determine who owns Bull Ditch, which was dug around the turn of the 20th century.

The owners might be responsible for cleaning. The county should think twice before cleaning out a ditch, Wright said, because it could lead to more requests from all over the county.

Deterding said this is an exceptional circumstance: an entire village is at risk.