The City of Henderson applied for a Sewer Grant Project grant in March and was awarded $600,000 for sanitary sewer improvements.
Community grant projects are designated for planning, designing, and constructing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure and for protecting water quality.
According to the grant application, the project will address the immediate concerns of sanitary sewer backups and failing sewer lines that Henderson residents have experienced due to excessive infiltration/inflows after rain events. The grant will also provide the City with a comprehensive study of the system to eliminate overflow events at the lift station, which serves the entire city.
The total estimated project cost is $1,185,000 per the Nebraska 2023 Intended Use Place Sewer Study. The City is requesting $45,000 for planning and $555,000 for the planning, designing, and constructing the sewer main replacement.
The City will cover the matching funds of 20% or more for the requested Sanitary Sewer Improvements. They anticipate using cash reserves, enterprise funds, or general budget funds for the non-federal funding source for the Sanitary Sewer Improvements Project.
According to City Clerk Connie Brown, it could be another year before the City fulfills all the requirements to receive the federal grant.
One requirement is to review and rank proposals from two engineering firms that would serve as project engineers for the sewer project. They did this at their September meeting and will send their ranking to the EPA before the project can proceed.
The community grant was made possible when President Biden signed the FY 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 118-42) into law on March 9, 2024. In this law, Congress continued the practice of funding specifically named community infrastructure projects, referred to by the Senate as CDS items and in the House of Representatives as CPF items.
