Town Infrastructure

Key to the town’s century old public water system, a 10” iron pipe that runs under Main Street and provides water to half the residents on public water is on its last legs.
Treacherous downtown sidewalks, a danger to many, are in desperate need of replacement.
The stormwater drainage system that once kept Main Street free of most flooding, as well as preventing low-lying businesses from being inundated, no longer functions at all.
The two town boat ramps are falling apart.
The downtown parking lot floods routinely during high tides, even more so when those tides coincide with wind-driven storm surge.
The absence of a safe pedestrian walkway to the ferry has been a concern for decades.

The Downtown Project is intended to replace those water pipes, rebuild downtown sidewalks, construct a dependable stormwater drainage system, construct two new boat ramps, raise the parking lot and the wall surrounding it, and build a new sidewalk from town to the ferry. It’s scheduled to get underway this year. This is an $8,000,000 project.

The Downtown Project depends on federal grants already awarded but not yet disbursed. There are $3.8 million from the Economic Development Administration. An additional $1 million is from the Northern Borders Regional Commission and some of that money has been received.