County to buy monitors for flood control

Purchase will assist engineers in planning stormwater solutions for flood-prone areas

Web posted June 27, 1998

By Jason B. Smith
Columbia County Bureau

Columbia County will purchase a series of monitors to gauge stream flows after heavy rains.

Engineers can use that information in planning solutions to the various stormwater problems facing the county, including an estimated $20 million in work along the Reed Creek drainage basin.

``This is part of the overall effort we are making to deal with remediation of flooding and related issues in the Reed Creek basin, as well as others,'' Commissioner Pete Brodie said Friday during a county Development and Environmental Services Committee meeting.

The $6,000 equipment consists of gauges and monitors. The equipment, which will be put in the streams, should last the county a decade, said county engineer Jim Leiper.

County officials hope to create a fund to deal with stormwater problems along Reed Creek and other areas where unrestricted development has magnified the problems in flood-prone areas in early 1999.

Columbia County would be only the second county in Georgia to implement such a fund, known as a stormwater utility. The utility would consist of fees from each county resident to fund storm water improvements. The fees could be added to a water and sewer bill or tax bill or mailed separately.

In other business, cleanup of petroleum at the old county fueling station off Davis Road will cost $16,900. Environmental Management Associates, a Norcross, Ga.-based company, will remove gas from several wells located on the property, as well as installing three new monitoring wells.