Federal stimulus money was approved to expand Lincoln water resources projects.
Almost $200 million nationwide stimulus checks will be sent to Lincoln for water projects to proceed faster—an additional $120 million for the city’s upgrade and other projects to expand. The legislature approved this program. With the help of the American Rescue Plan and Act dollars, the five identified projects in the city’s improvement were considered and bumped into the top list. Last year, the city’s second water source project was appropriated 20 million dollars to spend for the improvement and an additional $177.5 million for the city’s efforts.
Building another transmission line in the 98th Street corridor will be one of the projects this year; this was planned for a longer-term and will start this fiscal year. As stated by the Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Assistant Director Donna Garden, putting another transmission line in the 98th Street corridor will significantly help to transport into the city. This will be built between Holdrege and U.S. 6. This is one of the city’s capital improvement plans as Lincoln City continues to grow and expand. According to Journal Star, the plan for improvement on transmission roads had reserved $8 million in 2027-28.
Based on Garden, the city plans to improve the second water source, which should come from the Missouri wells. The transmission line will be of help for the connection of water sources from the Missouri River to Lincoln Reservoirs and also with the Ashland Wells coming into different Wells far from North. Garden said that this would allow all people in Lincoln to use the water in Missouri if, by any chance, Ashland would not be available. “The point is it gives us the ability to make sure water is available to all of Lincoln once Missouri is introduced,” Garden stated.
The money used for the improvement plans will come from the stimulus check of nearly $16.4 million from federal. An additional stimulus check of $9.4 million will be spent for the sixth horizontal collector well in Ashland, yet this project is not yet included in the improvement plan. For more information, click here.