PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A flood relief project in the works for years in Tarpon Springs recently took another step forward.<\/p>\n
The city commission approved an agreement in December with the Florida Department of Emergency Management.<\/p>\n
It allows the city to accept $31,000 for the design phase of the Sponge Docks Flood Abatement Project.<\/p>\n
It would help relieve flooding more quickly, according to city officials.<\/p>\n
Vice Mayor Mike Eisner said the city has been exploring ways to combat the flooding, especially at the Sponge Docks. They are considering installing what is called a \u201cvault\u201d underground that would collect floodwater through a series of pipes and a water pump station would then push it out. The city is also looking at rebuilding seawalls as well.<\/p>\n
Eisner said the cost of the project increased through the years from about $1 million to $5 million. He said some details still need to be worked out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have to try to schedule it to where it\u2019s the least-busiest time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have two areas off of Athens (Street) that usually flood on every single type of rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen, we have people driving by and they\u2019re always giving wakes from their cars and, yes, it\u2019s not a good situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city would also like to see smaller pumps so Dodecanese Boulevard isn\u2019t closed for too long.<\/p>\n
Eisner said project engineers are still designing a plan.<\/p>\n
City officials expect the project to take around six to eight months to complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A flood relief project in the works for years in Tarpon Springs recently took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,115,596,2718,135,137,136,278,835,221],"class_list":["post-118021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}