Council members discuss drainage project contract in Columbus
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The City of Columbus is one step closer to addressing long-standing flooding issues.
At a work session on May 1, City Council members recommended awarding a contract for drainage projects to Cullum Construction of Meridian.
Cullum’s was the lowest of two bids received by the city, and Mayor Keith Gaskin said that for the cost, they will be able to tackle not only the 8 areas in the main bid, but also two alternates.
Since ARPA funds will be paying for the work, time is of the essence.
All ARPA-related projects must be complete by the end of September 2026.
Mayor Gaskin said these projects are for long-term improvement.
It’s more than just cleaning out ditches.
“But, primarily, a lot of this work will be, like you said, with the culvert and stuff, which is infrastructure work that needs to be done. Some of these pipes and things were too small, which is why they were clogging up. But there will be some cleaning in the process while this is going on. As we’ve mentioned before, you have to be careful when you’re cleaning when you have the issues we have right now, because cleaning out one area could cause another flooding issue in another. There’s a chain reaction to it, but this work that they’re doing has been studied, and so we know that the work that they’re going to do will bring some relief very soon to the citizens,” said Gaskin.
The council is expected to vote on the recommendation at Tuesday night’s meeting.
