By PETER HUSSMANN
The City of Newton's application for a $1.8 million grant to fix sewage backup problems in the western portion of the city through funding from the competitive portion of the state's I-JOBS program was denied last week by the committee charged with reviewing the funding requests.
On Wednesday, the review committee of the I-JOBS board of directors recommended that 57 projects in 42 cities and 32 Iowa counties be approved by the full board when it meets in Waterloo today.
The I-JOBS initiative calls for the investment of a total of $830 million over a two-year period to improve Iowa's infrastructure. A portion of the total, $165 million, was earmarked to the Local Infrastructure Program. Of that, $118.5 million was made available on a competitive basis. The state received 136 applications totaling more than $333 million in requests before the Aug. 3 deadline.
In submitting the funding request for the Newton Sewer Backup Relief project, Bob Main, acting as interim public works director at the time, noted the problems residential property owners are having with sewer backups during periods of heavy rain.
"The trunk sewers serving the western portion of the city are significantly undersized," Main wrote in the application. "As a result, sewer overloading and backups occur during peak rain events. These have resulted in frequent basement flooding for residents in certain low-lying areas."
In outlining the scope of the project, the city proposed installing a parallel trunk sewer along most of the trunk sewer route, with a total length of approximately 7,000 feet. Main noted that most of the sewer length is in undeveloped areas but in developed areas the plan called for the replacement of the trunk sewer or the installation of a pump station to be used during peak flows to push water downstream to the parallel trunk sewer.
In touting the economic impacts of the proposed project, Main noted the significant hardships caused to residents impacted by the frequent sewage backups.
"The residents in the impacted areas have experienced frequent flooding of their basements with raw sewage during periods of heavy rainfall," he noted. "As a result, these homeowners have experienced extreme difficulties selling their homes. In addition, the residents are unable to leave their homes unattended during periods of wet weather due to the fear of possible flooding."
Main indicated the total project cost would be $3.6 million. In the application, Main noted that should the grant be received, the city would apply for a loan from the State Revolving Fund to finance the additional costs and adjust sewer rates to provide for the loan repayment.
Newton scored 69 points on its application, well below the threshold of the projects being recommended for approval. The review committee voted to defer 36 projects that could become eligible for funding if additional money is made available. The remaining 43 projects, including Newton's, were rejected.
You can read the complete list of projects submitted and the recommendations from the review committee here and Newton's application for the funding here.
Recent Comments