SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn. – Representatives with the Southeast Tennessee Development District have been hard at work in recent months searching for funding for South Pittsburg’s flood mitigation problems.
SETDD Executive Director Beth Jones told the South Pittsburg City Commission last week there is “some good news, but not good enough good news” on that front.
Officials have identified a $25,000 mitigation assistance grant through the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency for which the town could apply.
“It could go toward your hydraulic modeling studies,” Jones told the board. “The not-so-good news is that we’ve now gotten in the cost estimates from the professional consultants, and those studies are going to cost $75,000.”
With a $50,000 gap in funding, its unlikely South Pittsburg could find that additional needed money in the form of grants to begin the engineering work on the problem.
“This is not to actually build something or dig something or whatever,” Mayor Jane Dawkins said. “This is just to pay engineers to design some type of plan, and then take that plan to the maxi-funders. That’s all this is.”
Representatives with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were present at South Pittsburg’s first Flood Task Force meeting in February, and they indicated they have the ability to provide that needed technical assistance.
“Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money to put forward for studies before we ever build the first structure,” Jones said. “We may have to go through that process, and see what [the Corps’] response is. We may end up right back where we started from, but $25,000 is all that TEMA will put forward on what is considered a local mitigation plan regardless of the disaster.”
Dawkins said the Corps’ representatives said they “didn’t have money to give, but they did have skills to give and advice to give” on these types of projects.
The engineering work required to develop an action plan is “highly technical stuff,” Jones said.
“This is what is required to get grant assistance to do those other things,” she said. “It requires very skilled folks to do this.”
Jones said other potential sources of funding are still being pursued.
Dawkins noted that U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais was at that February task force meeting, too.
“Remember, Congressman DesJarlais is from here,” she said. “He’s from South Pittsburg. He votes right over there at the same place that we all do.”
Dawkins asked if the town could “call on him” or if SETDD could make that contact on South Pittsburg’s behalf to “start looking for some money.”
“I do think that if the city would call upon the congressman to ask the Corps to provide this assistance, that it would go a lot further,” Jones said. “It’s just going to cost us a little bit more time.”
The board voted unanimously to request DesJarlais’ and the Corps’ help with the mitigation plan.
“I think we’re definitely going to have to utilize them,” Dawkins said. “This is something that’s not going to happen immediately. None of this whole thing is. It’s a long, long-term kind of thing.”
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.