Construction under way on new Harrisburg pump station
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Construction has begun on a new pump station in Harrisburg that city officials hope will alleviate some of the flooding on the north end of the city.
"We're hoping that once this station is put in, it will greatly reduce the risk of flooding," Mayor Eric Gregg said.
The pump station is just inside the levee on the north end, near existing pump stations. The pumps will put 40,000 more gallons per-minute of pumping power online in the event of flash flooding, city Engineer Jim Brown said.
Friday morning, workers were driving sheet piling down in the excavated hole to make a safe work area.
"We should have it done this construction season, unless there is a bump," Brown said.
The only "bump" Brown envisions is something like torrential rainfall that delays construction. Even that becomes more unlikely as summer progresses.
The driving force for the project was merchants on the north end of Harrisburg who were flooded out in the 2008 flood and faced severe problems in April and May, Brown said.
The project is being paid for out of Tax-Increment Financing district money. The project should come in at over $1 million. H.E. Mitchell Construction from Harrisburg is the general contractor.
"We continue to upgrade our infrastructure and make the city function more efficiently with these sorts of projects," Gregg said.