“It’s been flooding since forever,” said Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard. “My constituents have been screaming and preaching that they wanted concrete-lined ditches and their ditches cleaned, and now we can give them some relief.”

Beard hopes that relief will come in the form of about $3 million in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grant funding. Columbus City Council gave the green-light to pursue the money during last Thursday’s work session.

If the application is successful, the money will go towards improving drainage between the 14th Avenue area and the Luxapalila Creek. The total project cost is around $4 million.

The Corps actually contacted the city and asked it to apply for the money, explained City Engineer Kevin Stafford. That request, in turn, dates back to about 2010 or so.

“We looked at the whole drainage basin that starts in the area of Lowe’s and runs all the way to Propst Park and the (Luxapalila) back then,” Stafford said. “We were given $6 million in Corps money, but it was a 25% match and the city didn’t have that much money.”

The city would eventually come up with enough matching money to get $1.3 million in funding, Stafford said, that was put towards lining ditches along 14th Avenue North with concrete.

“We talked with the Corps probably two weeks ago,” Stafford said. “… They said they still wanted to put money into the basin because we still have the need.”

The city’s plans for the area involve two pieces, Stafford said: a ditch near 14th Avenue and Moss Street, and a detention pond and ditching near the I.C. Cousins Community Center.

The concrete-lined ditches on 14th Avenue end at Moss Street, Stafford said. That piece of ditching is the only one left between 14th Avenue and Propst Park that isn’t concrete-lined.

“In a heavy rain, all that water stacks up at 14th and Moss,” he said. “(The ditch) hasn’t been cleaned out, it hasn’t been hard-surfaced, and in a really hard rain water will temporarily get across 14th Avenue.”

After the ditch work is done, Stafford said the city would move upstream to the area of 21st and 22nd Streets North, near I.C. Cousins. A detention pond would be constructed, and the ditches in the area would be improved.

“We would hard-surface all the ditches around I.C. Cousins instead of just cleaning them out,” Stafford said. “Those ditches get everything in the world stuck in them and have to be maintained regularly.”

Stafford estimated the total cost at around $5.8 million, but said the city could use some of its federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to make up the difference, as well as providing the matching funds for the Corps grant.

“The ARPA applications were written very generally so there would be flexibility in how we use the money to address that basin,” Stafford said.

Including state matching funds, the city has more than $6 million available to put toward watershed issues.

Beard said he unequivocally supported the project.

“It’s going to be a great thing not only for Ward 4 but for the entire city,” Beard said. “All that water flows through the heart of the city, and we’re smack dab in the middle. It’s got to go through us to go to Magby Creek, to the Luxapalila.”

Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.

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