By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

An engineering firm working to design a project to prevent flooding in neighborhoods on Alabama 261 is looking to have the project laid out before the end of June.

During a June 17 Pelham City Council work session, D. J. Strickland with the Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood engineering firm said the firm has been working to finalize the flood-prevention project over the past several months.

“In preparation for the final design, we’ve taken into consideration comments from residents and data from floods,” Strickland said. “We are at about 90 percent of having (the design) tied down.”

Once the design is finalized, Strickland said he will present it to the City Council for approval.

“I would personally like to have it wrapped up close to the end of the month,” Strickland said.

Pelham’s previous City Council agreed to provide up to $640,598 to match a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to fund the flood mitigation project.

As originally proposed, the project would have enlarged two existing detention ponds and construct two new detention ponds in the Alabama 261 basin near the Alabama Power Company substation.

However, the project was put on hold while Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood worked with FEMA and residents living near the project site to finalize the design.

In summer 2012, Pelham’s Saddle Run and Stratford Place neighborhoods flooded multiple times during significant rainfalls.