By Bonnie Culverhouse

It may be fall before the City of Minden learns if it qualified for a Delta Regional Authority infrastructure grant for replacing and rehabilitating the Shreveport Road Water Main. But if it comes through, it will help the city in a couple of ways.

“Instead of that project being $650,000, if we can get this DRA grant, our match would be $155,000,” Cox told council members during a recent budget workshop. “That would free up a half million (budgeted dollars) to put toward something else.”

Cox said the match would be funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds, rather than the city’s operating budget.

“The problem is, we have to allocate all the ARPA money by the end of the year,” Cox said. “And we won’t even know if we got the grant until October. We just submitted the request last week.”

Public Works Director Tyler Wallace said old infrastructure maps show the Shreveport Water Main was laid in the 1920s, making it possibly 100 years old.