C.R. celebrates FEMA funding for Water Pollution Control plant

CEDAR RAPIDS - City Hall is still fighting the Federal Emergency Management Agency over some $50 million in disaster funds for the incinerator at the Water Pollution Control facility.

But on Friday, the city set aside the dispute - and others it is having with FEMA - to celebrate the agency's award of $15.688 million to help protect the Water Pollution Control plant at Highway 13 and Bertram Road SE from future flooding.

FEMA's flood mitigation program requires the state to pay for 10 percent of the work and the city to pay for 15 percent. So the state will provide an additional $2.09 million and the city, $3.2 million, for the $21 million project.

Joe O'Hern, the city's flood recovery and reinvestment director, on Friday called the FEMA award “very, very welcome news.”

Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa City, first announced the FEMA award a month ago.

O'Hern noted that the June 2008 flood inundated the city's wastewater plant and closed it for 12 days, causing problems for residents and local industries and resulting in the discharge of 3.1 billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage into the Cedar River.

The plant's new flood-protection system - which is not part of the city's overall flood-protection system - will feature flood walls and earthen berms at the plant and pumping equipment behind them so the treated discharge from the plant and stormwater can get into the river even during times of high water, O'Hern said.

Construction is to be completed in 2014.