ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Millions in federal funds are coming to Pinellas County to clean up creeks damaged by Hurricane Milton.<\/p>\n
Commissioners unanimously approved an agreement last month with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to accept a $29.4 million grant through its Emergency Watershed Protection Program.<\/p>\n
Pinellas County Public Works Director Kelli Hammer Levy told the board the money is meant to repair erosion, clear overgrown vegetation, and more along segments of Joe\u2019s Creek, Curlew Creek, Bee Branch Creek, and South Creek.<\/p>\n
She told commissioners at the June 16 meeting that will cover 100 percent of construction and oversight costs. No match will be needed from the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are all sections where we do have rights,\u201d Levy said. \u201cSo there are, you know, I know there are some areas where we, where it\u2019s private, and that\u2019s, that\u2019s on the private property owner to handle. But everywhere here we have rights, or we have an easement that allows us to do this work.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Levy, NRCS also funded the removal of debris and large trees that were blocking the flow of water after Milton.<\/p>\n
Agenda documents say a budget amendment recognizing the value of the grant will be brought before commissioners in the future.<\/p>\n
Several residents who live and work along different sections of Joe\u2019s Creek, including near 49th St. N. and 40th Ave. North, 37th St. N. and 49th Ave. North, and Brookside Mobile Manor, said flooding from the creek isn\u2019t an issue, but they\u2019re happy to hear repairs are on the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Millions in federal funds are coming to Pinellas County to clean up creeks damaged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,1802,115,596,2718,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835,221],"class_list":["post-332917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-top-stories","tag-hurricane-milton","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332917","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=332917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}