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As levee costs grow, next stage includes state funding

City Council approved $61,400 to pay Wood, an engineering firm, to continue the recertification and repair of the levee Thursday night.

“Our city has $100,000 set aside for the levee,” said Councilwoman Bonnie Katz, chairwoman of public works committee.

The city has been working on this for seven years, she said.

The next stage is to use $2 million grant on replacing relief wells in the northwest section of the levee, she said.

The grant is a state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Projects grant from the Office of Budget under Gov. Tom Wolf.

Wolf recently visited the levee and remarked on how a $4.5 billion annual severance tax on natural gas would go toward such projects and protect communities from flooding.

Mark Benner, city engineer in training, said after that the city will have to repair crosspipes that provide drainage at the levee.

Councilwoman Liz Miele noted the city borrowed about $500,000 in the form of a bond for the levee work.

The levee must be recertified so that residents and businesses under its protection aren’t required to pay flood insurance.

The levee partners are following instructions from the Army Corps of Engineers, which built the levee in the mid-1950s, and also will need to make transitions from the T-wall to an I-wall construction on the Lycoming Creek side.

The estimated cost of the levee repairs is between $13.6 and $16 million, according to Katz.

Penn Strategies Inc., the city economic development consultant, is working on finding additional funding streams for the repairs in the future.

Lycoming County Planning Department also has a consultant, Keller and Associates, in Washington, D.C., looking for federal funding for the project.

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