Jul. 3—Officials said Athens’ Strain Road Project has been a long time coming, and they hope to fix the drainage and sewage issues that have plagued the area for years.
“The end result, we hope, will be that we handle the localized flooding along the neighborhoods that are situated along Strain Road west and east. That is for phase 1 and 2,” said Athens City Engineer Michael Griffin. “When we approach phase 3 and 4 for the sewer, if there is any need for sewer at that point in time, we can address it when we’ve handled all the situations where we prevent septic tanks from flooding.”
Griffin said a lot of the residents are saying there is flooding that impacts their septic systems. He said they believe if they can fix a lot of the flooding that happens in the area, a lot of the sewage issues will be solved. Griffin said almost all of the properties on East and West Strain roads are on septic tank systems.
“If we address it again after we fix the drainage and there are no issues, OK, we solved the problem,” he said. “But if there are still issues after the drainage is solved, that’s when we’ll start tackling the sewer issue individually, per household.”
Griffin said this portion of the city was annexed into the city in the 1970s, so it is not up to city standards. The project includes Luke Street to the end of West Strain Road and East Strain Road with everything west of Lindsay Lane.
“Our first phase of the plan right now that we’ll bid out for contract — we’re looking at replacing a culvert on Luke Street and Strain Road West,” he said. “We’re going to do some stream remediation, which means we’re going to make the stream a little (tighter) to handle the big flooding as it comes through that area.”
That is phase 1, Griffin said, while phase 2 will be on East Strain Road with localized, smaller areas.
“We’re planning on Public Works doing this work because we just need the materials, the pipes. But it’s sporadic, through the whole region instead of just one or two spots,” he said. “We’re going to find underperforming areas when it comes to stormwater and then fix and repair those. And there’s about five locations in the East Strain Road neighborhood.”
Griffin said they have hit the ground running with the project.
“Right now, we’re starting on contracts and estimates, and surveying. Surveying has already started,” he said.
Athens Mayor Ronnie Marks said the Strain Road area needs particular attention.
“This has been a critical area for our community for 50, 60 years and since then has not been touched by anyone,” he said. “They’ve had drainage problems, and it really created more initiatives particularly when we ran the sewer line down pretty close to that to accommodate Buc-ee’s a few years ago.”
Marks said they did door-to-door surveys, and most residents said they wanted to be put on a city sewer line.
“One of the things that kept coming up was, until we fix the drainage and the groundwater issues that’s affecting them, it’s not a time to do the sewer,” he said. “So, we put our efforts into seeing how we could deal with the drainage.”
It is a big operation, Marks said.
“We’re going to tackle it because we need to,” he said.
Griffin said they were awarded $123,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) for engineering, in which the city has already matched $100,000. The city received an award letter from ADEM with a commitment of $4.5 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.
“They’re not sending me a $4.5 million check. We’ve got to do work, turn in invoices, and get reimbursed,” Marks said. “It’s basically kind of like a loan. They have told me that the loan principal will be forgiven.”
Griffin said since they will be looking at the project in phases, they will not use all $4.5 million in the first two phases that address drainage.
“We’re thinking on phase 1 and phase 2 there might be an underrun. ADEM went ahead and afforded us a higher amount in case we have some left over to handle the sewer type of items. We don’t anticipate the drainage costing the whole $4.5 million,” he said. “If we need to come back and ask for more, we have the capability of doing that. ADEM informed us that this is only for fiscal 2024.”
Griffin said the city has to submit the project plan back to ADEM for the west side of the interstate.
“We’re hoping by the end of this fall they will approve our plan, and we’ll have a contract out to bid,” he said. “Now, on the east side of the interstate situated along Strain Road, we should be trying to get out there within the next few months ourselves and seeing some work being done.
“The completion on the west side we’re hoping to be done by summer of next year.”
—erica.smith@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2460.