Major floodwall project in Milton moves forward

MILTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Flooding has wreaked havoc on families and small businesses in the Milton community for decades.

Plans to build a flood wall halted when the cost of the project went up.

Sen. Joe Manchin announced extra federal dollars will add to up $190.7 million in federal funding to cover the project’s cost.

“It has been approved. The money has been appropriated and now it is time to work on construction,” said Sen. Manchin at the announcement in Milton.

The Corps of Engineers said the floodwall construction is one of the largest projects of its kind.

Brian Lowe is the project manager and he said he is finally able to give a timeline for the project’s completion.

“Activities can resume, some of the first activities that needs to be done is real estate acquisition we estimate that construction will begin sometime about a year and a half or two from now,” Lowe said.

The project will take three-four years to complete, Lowe said. “At this point we are just finishing the design.”

There are some concerns from the Milton community about the project’s design and how other areas might see flooding.

“They would not be spending $191 million of the taxpayer’s money to make something worse than better, I can assure you,” Manchin said.

“We’ve taken those concerns very seriously,” Lowe said. “We are looking at our design to see what more we can do to refine the design and further minimize those types of impacts.”

So, five years down the road, a community that continuously floods will not have to worry and the flood wall will help put money back into people’s pockets.

“I would assume insurance rates, premium rates would be able to be adjusted because of the protection,” said Sen. Manchin.

Public hearings will be held March 15 and 16 at Milton City Hall. That open meeting will be from 3 to 7 p.m. both days.

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