Milton To Receive Federal Funding To Help Complete Flood Prevention Project

The town of Milton is receiving more than $190 million in federal funding for flood prevention in the area.

The money comes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help support the town’s Lower Mud River Flood Risk Management project. It would build a flood wall that would span approximately one and a half miles along the river starting from east Milton and ending at an embankment about 500 feet south of U.S. Route 60. 

The plan is for the wall to be an average of 19 feet high and 26 feet at its tallest. Construction is scheduled to begin this year, according to the project’s webpage.

The webpage states the completed flood wall would “provide protection to over 600 structures including residences and businesses, along with public structures, personal property, and critical infrastructure.”

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, wrote a letter of support for the project last May.

“The Lower Mud River Flood Risk Management Project will bolster flood protection by constructing a new levee and river channel, which will also move much of the town out of the flood plain, helping spur economic development and changing this flood plain from a 27-year flood plain to a 250-year one,” Manchin said in a release announcing the funding.

The project comes as a response to decades of flooding in the town, including a “once in a hundred year flood” that hit the town earlier this month. 

A study of flooding in the area was completed in 1993 by the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Responsibility for the action plan was transferred to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1996.

Also announced separately was another $35 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act set to go towards upgrading water, wastewater and stormwater systems statewide.