MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 The city of Madeira Beach has been awarded a $100,000 matching grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to install backflow valves on storm drain pipes to prevent tidal flooding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been having some major high tides lately,\u201d said Public Works director Megan Wepfer. \u201cWe have various locations throughout the island that will receive valves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wepfer said officials have identified 13 low-lying locations across the city where the backflow valves will be installed, at a total cost of $200,000. The intersection at 140th Avenue and Bayshore Drive is one of those locations on the list.<\/p>\n
Resident Marianne Harrison said she tries to avoid driving her car through the corrosive seawater.<\/p>\n
\u201cI either turn around or I try to find an alternate route. But there are several patches that do get pretty full,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s tough, and I try to rinse my car off when I get home too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice Mayor Eddie McGeehen said he supports the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a great, great grant for this project, and this is just going to help the residents,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win for the city, and we\u2019re super excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wepfer presented the project to city commissioners during a workshop last week. Commissioner Housh Ghovaee said he was not in favor of the design and plans to vote against the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ll impede on drainage, and I think the barnacles will grow,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be a maintenance nightmare. I just don\u2019t like flapper valves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wepfer said there are no alternatives available to address the tidal flooding problem and the devices are not fully a flapper valve because they have more of a cone shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this design that we\u2019ve had in place since 2017, we don\u2019t really have an issue with barnacle growth on these,\u201d she said. \u201cWhich is why we are proceeding to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public Works does quarterly maintenance on the backflow valves currently installed in the city, according to Wepfer.<\/p>\n
City commissioners are scheduled to vote on the project at their Aug. 12 meeting. McGeehen said he believes it will be approved. Harrison said she supports the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like that idea. I think that\u2019s excellent,\u201d she said. \u201cI try not to go out when there\u2019s a high tide.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city listed the 13 locations where public works would like the backflow valves to be installed:<\/p>\n
2nd Street and 154th Avenue
\n15336 and 15337 Harbor Drive
\n142nd Avenue and N. Bayshore Drive
\n141st Avenue Stormwater Station
\n140th Avenue E. and S. Bayshore Drive
\n14087 and 14089 N. Bayshore Drive
\n913 and 915 Bay Point Drive
\n876 Street End
\n803 and 805 Bay Point Drive
\n817 and 819 Bay Point Drive
\n708 and 710 Pruitt Drive
\nIsland Drive outfall
\n113 140th Avenue E<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 The city of Madeira Beach has been awarded a $100,000 matching grant from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-356943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-top-stories","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356943","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=356943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}