COVINGTON, Ky. - An engineering firm is being hired to design the newest phase of a multi-million-dollar, decade-long effort to alleviate basement sewer backups and flooding in the Peaselburg neighborhood.

 

The Covington Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night approved a $114,800 contract with Integrated Engineering of Lexington to design the long-planned project. It likely will include more detention basins, storm water pipes, catch basins, and grading in the area around Pointe Benton Road near the old Highland & Benton baseball field.

 

The design work, which is to be completed by Oct. 21, will help the City and its partner on the project - Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky (SD1) - determine details such as the size, number, and placement of the detention basins, said Bill Matteoli, assistant project engineer in Covington’s Public Works Department.

 

The City hopes to issue bids for construction by year’s end with work starting early next year.

 

At a discussion of the contract last Tuesday, City Commissioner Michelle Williams emphasized that the project was another piece - not the complete solution - in the ongoing, time-consuming and expensive effort to address water problems in the neighborhood.

 

“This will not eliminate the flooding up there but it will reduce the flooding,” she said.

 

Like many older areas of Northern Kentucky, parts of Covington still have an archaic “combined” system that collects both sanitary sewage (from people’s homes) and rain run-off from gutters and catch basins. In those areas, extremely heavy rain can overwhelm the system and cause basement drains to back up.

 

Previous phases built four detention basins in the wooded hills below the Monte Casino community that collectively hold back over 3.2 million gallons of rainwater during heavy storms. The new project will add even more capacity and increase the “size” of the storm the system can handle without problems in parts of the neighborhood that are downhill.

 

The City last year was awarded a $412,000 federal grant for construction of the project, and SD1 agreed to contribute an additional $277,500 that will be used for the design, among other things.

 

The exact cost of construction will depend on Integrated Engineering’s design, Public Works Director Chris Warneford said. 

 

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