The city of Greenwood is on the hook for at least $240,000 to re-route pipes over the levee from a storm water pumping station on East Claiborne Avenue.
It’s the first in what could be a long, costly series of levee projects as the Federal Emergency Management Agency proceeds with its re-certification of the levees in Greenwood and Leflore County.
Craig McRaney, Vicksburg District levee safety program manager at the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Corps ordered the city to remove the pump station’s pipes from the levee in August.
The Corps did work on the drain next to the station and found that the pipe discharge was causing the problems with the drain and that it went through the levee below the flood line.
“The Corps has a fundamental policy that no pipe can penetrate beneath the flood elevation of the levee, which is basically the top of the levee,” engineer Tom Tollison, from the Johnson-McAdams firm, told the Greenwood City Council at its meeting Tuesday. “For whatever reason, these pipes were put in three feet below it.”
Tollison said that was the result of a design flaw when the pipes were put in, which was in the 1960s or 1970s.
“They’ve been in place for all those years, and nobody ever said anything,” he said.
The city will now have to reroute the pipes up and over the levee and then all the way out to the Yazoo River.
According to Victor Stokes, the city’s flood plain coordinator, the pump station was just one of several whose pipes may pierce the levee too low.
“There’s some more issues that are going to come up on down the line,” Stokes said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The council voted to accepted the lowest of five bids on the project, from Mac McNeer Construction in Greenwood, for $240,000.
For some on the council, that was a steep price sticker for an unbudgeted project.
When asked if the Corps of Engineers had any funds to help with the project, Tollison said they didn’t as far as he knew.
“The city of Greenwood doesn’t have any funds as far as I know,” replied Council President Ronnie Stevenson.
The council debated delaying the project in order to search for grant money, but Tollison and Stokes strongly recommended against any delay.
Since the city has already removed the pipes from the levee, Tollison said, “the flood protection is not in place.”
The storm water pump station serves a significant area of northeast Greenwood. With the station offline, that leaves the area vulnerable during heavy rain.
“If we had six or eight inches of rain, there’s no way to get it back across the levee,” Ward 1 Councilman Johnny Jennings said.
Stokes added that the city is on a pressing timeline to complete the project.
“I’ve just got to have those pumps up and running before the rainy season hits,” he said.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
