Let’s not neglect one vital detail in the dialogue about the bike trail in Butler’s Alameda Park — control of erosion and drainage.

The six-mile mountain bike trail, formally named the Alameda Park Single Track, was mentioned last week during the Butler County commissioners meeting. Lance Welliver, the county’s director of parks and recreation, asked commissioners for $10,000 from the county legacy fund to pay expenses incurred on the trail.

Welliver gave a brief history of the trail’s birth and development since 2014, when volunteers first envisioned a 20-mile course to be hewn and hacked out of the brush and trees of Alameda Park wilderness. He explained how the volunteers, beginning in 2015, have cleared more than five miles of the trail.

The original 20-mile goal now appears overly optimistic. “Realistically, we’re probably looking at 12 to 15,” Welliver told the commissioners.

But the scale-back is not for a lack of effort. “The volunteers are here almost every weekend, doing something with the trail,” he said. “They have probably 2,000 hours in.”

It’s important to recognize and applaud such outstanding levels of dedication. Enthusiasts of any sort won’t invest hours of work if they don’t believe in the merits of their pastime — which is all the more reason that the ultimate authority, in this case, the county commissioners, make sure that the work these volunteers do benefits everyone.

It’s in this spirit that we urge caution about the bigger-picture issue of drainage.

Sullivan Run, the small stream that flows through Alameda Park, became a source of terrible destruction last summer when it overflowed its banks during a period of admittedly heavy rain a half-mile downstream on the west side of Butler.

On July 5, three inches of rain fell in 90 minutes. Sullivan Run’s overflow flooded hundreds of basements, moved cars, swamped backyards in mud and prompted Mayor Tom Donaldson to declare a state of emergency and curfew. The cleanup endured for weeks, involved dozens of agencies and cost tens of thousands of dollars. A year later, the city is recruiting the Army Corps of Engineers and assembling nearly $2 million in state and federal funding for flood control along Sullivan Run in an attempt to prevent future incidents.

At least one letter writer cited the cutting of brush in the Alameda Park, which is upstream, as a potential contributing factor in the flooding of Sullivan Run.

On the one hand, nothing will prevent flooding when three inches of rain falls in 90 minutes. Over the 400 acres that make up Alameda Park, that’s more than 32 million gallons of water funneling into Butler. No wonder the city became an instant bathtub!

Still, let’s be overly cautious not to suggest that any activity upstream caused flooding below. The only suggestion to be made is that we should be making every effort, taking every precaution, to prevent anything that might aggravate flooding if heaven’s floodgates open again.

Obviously, Army Corps officials will lend an expert opinion if and when the corps gets involved. In that case, preventive compliance measures for Sullivan Run will extend easily to ongoing improvements within Alameda Park and other points upstream.