Hartselle city officials informed downtown business owners that a retention pond located behind the Hartselle Board of Education office will only stop about 10 percent of the flooding in downtown.

During a meeting Dec. 3 at the Hartselle High School lecture hall, Mayor Don Hall and two representatives from Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood addressed the Downtown Merchants Association about the flooding issues.

Gerald Clark with Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood said the retention pond will be mitigating the water that runs into Town Branch, which runs underneath the railroad tracks and flows under downtown Hartselle.

“What we want to do is to reduce the quantity and the speed of the water going downtown,” he said. “We’re not changing the box culvert system in downtown.”

He said the one-acre pond’s purpose is to slow the water down during peak rainstorms.

However, some downtown business owners felt the pond wouldn’t help the flooding issues.

Jeff Tanner told the group that he didn’t think that was where most of the water was coming from.

Jeanette Groover said she believed the water was coming from Bamboo Cane and was washing down along the west side of the tracks.

Mayor Don Hall said the money that they have now is only enough to build the retention pond behind the board offices.

“We’re looking for other areas to build additional ponds, but funding would be needed,” Hall said.

The current project will cost about $325,000. Hall said they have been petitioning Congress each year since 2003 for flood mitigation funding. However, it was only in 2010 that the city was notified that it would receive $245,000 in funding.

Of the funding that the city received and is matching, only $154,350 is available for a construction contract.