Agencies to discuss storm water, housing projects

The city council, the South Platte Natural Resource District and the Joint East Sidney Watershed Authority will hold a joint meeting next week to discuss storm water policies that affect the east Sidney development.

A master plan for the area developed by Olsson and Associates will be reviewed prior to discussion about specific projects.

“With all of the projects now going forward, the timing is of such that we need to make some decisions to be proactive in getting some of these upstream storm water mitigation projects going forward,” said city manager Gary Person at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

The groups will also discuss various funding options including state and federal grants.

“There are a total of about $4.3 million worth of potential projects over the long haul out in this area,” Person said.

In addition to grants, some low interest, long-term loans are available to the city at the moment as well.

“Every fiscal year is different and you may have a lot of projects coming forward some years and then they have to prioritize funding,” Person said.

Right now funding opportunities are abundant and the city wants to take advantage of that.

Councilman Mark Nienhueser expressed a desire to ensure that the council and the other entities invested in these storm water issues are sharing costs for the engineering efforts involved with these projects. The joint meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Jan. 21 at the SPNRD office.