Work on a stalled drainage project will hopefully resume in early 2013, according to District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith. The Pickensville Road/Pickens Drive project came to a halt when engineering changes had to be made in November.
“I’m confident we will get the project back on track in the near future,” Smith said. “Everyone wants to see this completed. It will be good for the county and it will be good for the residents that have had to live with standing water.”
Smith said the project, which will create a water flow in the ditches along Pickensville Road and Pickens Drive in East Columbus, has been on the table for about five years. Funding, however, was not available until some grant money was released through Tombigbee Water Management.
The county has voted to allocate up to $50,000 for the project. On Nov. 1, county engineer Bob Calvert said a resident in the area had complained about the depth of a ditch running in front of his house. Calvert recommended the ditch be rerouted to go behind the property.
The lull in the project meant Tombigbee Water Management, which was doing the work for the county, had to leave the project to start work elsewhere.
“We’re just hoping we can dig the ditch and run it behind the house,” Smith said. “We’ve met on the project, and we are just waiting to hear from Mr. Calvert and for him to stake out the ditch. We just need to make sure the water will flow in the right direction. We also want to make sure this project can be completed without costing the taxpayers any additional money. Right now, it’s just a matter of engineering.”
Calvert said he feels certain the water will flow properly behind the house.
“The ditches in the area don’t have an outlet — when it rains, the ditches just hold the water,” Calvert said. “We just need to shoot the grades. We are going to cut the ditch with a grade. The ditch is flat and we just need to run the levels to grade the ditch.”
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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