PA to secure hazard mitigation money

Published 12:13 am Tuesday, July 2, 2019

The Port Arthur City Council on Tuesday was likely to advance an effort to receive federal funding that will help resolve flooding threats in three distinct areas.

Councilmembers as part of the consent agenda for their Tuesday morning meeting will consider a resolution to authorize the city manager to accept $1,651,002 for engineering and design of drainage projects in El Vista subdivision, Port Acres and Lake Arthur.

The first two projects call for work on culverts on 11 streets in El Vista and 12 streets in Port Acres. Funding for Lake Arthur will enable the city to expand that site as a detention pond, a dry pond that will collect excess floodwater and hold it until the city can safely release it.

Subscribe to our free email newsletter

Get the latest news sent to your inbox

Drainage improvements in El Vista will include these streets: Maple, Pine, Willow, Cherry, Barbara, Danny, Golden, Daisy, 60th and Roosevelt.

Drainage improvements in Port Acres will be on these streets: 67th, Garnett, 66th, 65th, Anne, Susie, 64th, 63rd and Jade.

“It means that we are going to be able to help relieve our drainage problems all around the city,” said Alberto Elefaño, public works director.

He said the city targeted “big problems” after Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey, including problems in those specific neighborhoods and areas.

“We have been working on it for quite a while now, since Hurricane Harvey, trying to figure out which projects would help Port Arthur survive something like that,” Elefaño said.

He said the Lake Arthur project would relieve flood pressure in the Jimmy Johnson Boulevard and Ninth Avenue areas, as well as in Stonegate.

He said the city made application for the grant in autumn 2018. Terms of the grant call for the federal government to put up 75 percent of the grant with the city matching with 25 percent of the project cost, money that would be paid from a Community Development Block Grant. Thus, the city would pay nothing for the Phase 1 portion of the project.

Elefaño said councilmembers signed off on the grant and the streets where culvert work will be done.