City Utilities receives $9.3 million to ensure water supply is safe during blackouts

Marta Mieze, Springfield News-Leader
·2 min read

City Utilities of Springfield has been selected to receive a $9.3 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to lessen impacts of future disasters.

According to the FEMA Region 7 news release, the money will be used to "provide backup natural gas-powered generators to protect the ongoing water supply at the Blackman Water Treatment Plant in the event of a power outage due to tornadoes, ice storms, or cyber attacks."

The water treatment plant provides potable water to about 159,000 people each day, according to the project description on FEMA's website. These services go down during outages. With the use of backup generators powered by natural gas, the plant will be able to function at full capacity during any outages.

The grant comes as part of FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program aimed at assisting communities in preventing impacts from disasters and investing in resilient infrastructure.

"The more we can help protect people and property before a disaster strikes, the more resilient a community can become in the long term," Andrea Spillars, FEMA Region 7 Administrator, said in the release.

One project from each Midwest state was chosen through a nationally competitive process — with City Utilities taking the Missouri spot.

Funding yet to come

Joel Alexander, media relations manager for City Utilities, said Tuesday that the utility is still awaiting an official notification from FEMA about receiving the grant.

More: Largest scale power outage in eight years leaves 15,500 without electricity

In total, FEMA granted $1.8 billion in federal funding across the nation. According to the release, this was made possible by the influx of allocated money from the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The legislation nearly doubled the money available for resilience programs.

Each state was also eligible to receive up to $2 million in non-competitive BRIC funding for the previous 2022 fiscal year, according to the news release. In Missouri, three projects costing right under $2 million dollars have been selected. These are yet to go through the second and final review before receiving the funding.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: City Utilities of Springfield to receive resiliency funds from FEMA