State demands project completion plan by April 10; bids on sewer work don’t open until April 9
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has warned the City of Marion that it could lose $2,475,000 in federal funding for sewer and wastewater infrastructure upgrades if the city cannot demonstrate it will finish the project on time. In a March 18 letter obtained by The Times-Standard-Herald, ADEM Director Edward Poolos told Mayor Dexter Hinton that his staff has “concern that the recipient may not be in position to complete the project by the December deadline,” and that any unused funds “would be redirected to other critical need projects that can meet the timeline requirements.”
The money was awarded under the American Rescue Plan Act on December 19, 2023, for a project designated “Marion, City of – Upgrade Sewer Lines & WWTP,” funded through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund under Project No. CS010962-01. Under the terms of the agreement, all project funds must be expended by December 31, 2026. The agreement also requires the city to demonstrate by June 1, 2026 that it can complete construction by the end of the year.
Poolos gave the city until April 10 to respond with a current narrative on where the project stands relative to completion, a detailed project outlay schedule with monthly milestones, and any impediments or concerns that may delay the schedule. “Time is growing short on the use of these funds, and we do not want any of these one-time funds to be reverted,” Poolos wrote. The letter was copied to five ADEM staff members, the city’s contracted engineering firm Utility Engineering Consultants of Homewood, and two staffers from the office of Congresswoman Terri Sewell.
A review of legal notices published in the Times-Standard-Herald shows the project is in its early stages. The city advertised an invitation for bids on Contract 6, the Marion Sanitary Sewer Lift Station Upgrades, in the March 5 edition. That contract calls for upgrades and modifications to sewer lift stations including new pumps, panels, electrical work, and piping. Sealed bids are due at Marion City Hall by 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 9 — one day before ADEM’s deadline for the city to explain how it plans to finish the project on time.
The bid notice specifies a contract time of 200 consecutive calendar days. If the city awarded the contract the day bids were opened, the 200-day clock would run into late October, leaving roughly two months before the December 31 expenditure deadline. Any delay in awarding the contract, mobilizing the contractor, or resolving problems during construction would push the timeline closer to or past the deadline.
The sewer project is separate from the city’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund project, which has been the subject of prior ADEM warnings and was covered extensively in this newspaper’s Feb. 12 edition. Two drinking water contracts, for emergency telemetry upgrades and a chemical feed system overhaul at the water treatment plant, were placed before the council at its March 18 meeting. That meeting, originally scheduled for Monday, March 16, was postponed to Wednesday, and the council did not achieve a quorum. No business was conducted.
As of press time, no special or emergency meeting has been posted in the days since. The city has taken no public action in response to the ADEM letter.
The March 18 letter is the latest in a series of increasingly urgent warnings from ADEM to Marion over the city’s handling of state and federally funded water and sewer projects. In January, Poolos set a firm deadline for Marion’s long-overdue fiscal year 2023 audit and told the mayor he would instruct staff to begin the process of redirecting remaining funds from the drinking water project to another applicant if the city did not comply. Marion delivered the audit on the last day of that deadline.
A second January letter, signed by Deputy Director Jeffery Kitchens, told the city its Fiscal Sustainability Plan for drinking water and wastewater systems was “deficient for SRF Program purposes” and ordered a revision. That letter also told the city to stop diverting water and sewer revenues to support other city functions, a practice ADEM called unsustainable and told the city “should cease immediately.”
The ARPA funds at stake represent a one-time federal investment that cannot be replaced. The American Rescue Plan directed money to communities like Marion specifically because they lack the local tax base to fund major infrastructure work on their own. Perry County is among the poorest counties in Alabama.
Marion’s water and sewer systems have been the subject of sustained public concern. The city’s water system failed over the Thanksgiving holiday in November 2025, leaving residents without service. Vendors who performed work on the system have gone unpaid. The city has not responded to open records requests from this newspaper dating to December 2025 regarding the water system’s finances and operations.
