Ditches and flooding are taking a top priority for the newly elected Columbia administration.
Mayor Justin McKenzie said frequent rains have brought a lot of issues to light.
“We’re concerned with the way water backs up around Church Street and Beauvoir Avenue,” he said. “We are also looking at the area of Church Street and East Avenue and what may be wrong with the storm drainage system down East Avenue from Church Street. We’re also looking at what we can do to improve the storm drain pipe on Oak Avenue. We have something restricting the water flow there.”
McKenzie said another major project, begun under former Mayor Robert Bourne, concerns drainage for a large portion of the city’s northeast side.
“We’re faced with many challenges with the ditch in Ridgewood,” McKenzie said. “The sidewalls are caving in and it is causing some erosion. Mayor Bourne and the previous Board addressed some of that. From this point forward, our current Board and I will do everything we can to get these repairs made in
a timely manner. We want to repair it to
a standard that it will hold up for many years to come.”
Many of the problems have been long-term problems and McKenzie hopes the city can address them.
“It’s taken many years for some of them get to the condition they are in,” he said. “There is deterioration in the ditch in Ridgewood, for example, and it has come from growth in the cracks and trees on the edge that has pushed the cement back.”
Some projects are eligible for federal assistance through programs such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
“We’ve got a problem on George Drive that involves some pretty bad erosion on a lady’s property,” McKenzie said. “We have applied for several of the NRCS grants. It is a matching grant and (City Engineer) Sean Burns with Dungan Engineering serves as the primary liaison with them. We’ve already made many repairs like the Browns Avenue project. A project on Pineview, one on Broad Street, we’ve had several locations that they (NRCS) has been able to help us with.”
McKenzie said the city is seeking NRCS help for a project near Duckworth Park.
“It is along Lumberton Road,” he said. “Erosion is occurring where the two ditches come together on the back side of the Citizens Bank property. We have some pretty bad erosion there, so we want to fix that and do some maintenance on the ditch along Lumberton Road. We also have several other locations that have been identified and we hope to tackle each one of them.”
McKenzie said he welcomes input from citizens on flooding or drainage issues.
“If somebody has a problem, please call City Hall and let us know,” he concluded. “If you don’t talk to me, talk to Earl Turnage or Lonnie Stringer and let us know where it is at what’s going on, and when we meet, we can go over these issues and identify the areas that need immediate attention. It’s going to be a long term project.”
City Hall can be reached at (601) 736-8201. The Columbia Board of Aldermen meets in regular session at 4 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.
Pictured Above: This ditch that runs through the Meadowood subdivision is an area of concern for the city officials. | Photo by Mark Rogers
