Columbus City Council voted unanimously to seek state matching money for an American Rescue Plan Act-funded drainage project on Northside during its regular meeting Tuesday night.
Waggoner Engineering has been working with the city to develop plans to help alleviate widespread flooding throughout the city. These first efforts will target a large area on Northside, with a total estimated price tag of $6.9 million, according to Waggoner Senior Discipline Manager Zoffee Dahmash.
Dahmash said the idea is to get the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, which is handling ARPA grant requests from municipalities, to match the $3 million the council has designated for drainage projects, as well as $450,000 requested from the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors.
“The portal opened Dec. 1 and is open through Jan. 31,” Dahmash said. “… In the first round, most of the projects were for sewer and water-related projects. MDEQ is really encouraging drainage projects. We hope this time we’ll have a better chance at the matching funds.”
The lion’s share of the work is going into areas in Wards 4 and 5. It is bounded on the west by a ridge parallel to Military Road; on the south by College Street; by Highway 82 to the north; and on the east by a line running north from College near 19th Street North, then along 20th Street to 14th Avenue, then west to Railroad Street and then eventually runs north to Bluecutt Road.
The area is one of two discussed at a September work session.
At that time Waggoner was also looking at an area in Ward 1 near the intersection of College Street and 15th Street South, but that has been shelved for now in favor of doing work in the area of the Brickyard, explained Project Engineer Joseph Paige.
“There’s about 7,000 linear feet of ditches in that area,” he said. “Between 14th Avenue North and Highway 82 we’re going to clean out those ditches, and then add some drainage infrastructure and storage and detention areas to help with flooding in that area.”
Dedicating the work in that area will prevent storm water from moving downstream and affecting other areas in the city, Paige said.
“It’ll be more effective and we’ll have more bang for our buck in those areas,” he said. “We want to catch more of that water before it goes (downstream.)”
The ARPA money will all go toward construction. Waggoner is seeking a $2 million United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service grant to cover the planning and design for the projects.
Although the city has asked the county to chip in $450,000 toward its watershed projects, the supervisors have not yet formally voted to do so.
ARPA funds are required to be committed by the end of 2024, and projects must be complete by the end of 2026.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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