Marquette County flap with FEMA

Marquette County is going back and forth with the federal government about funding for a road reconstruction project.

In 2009, FEMA told the county it could have about $155,000 in grants for a flood mitigation project on County Road 510.

Four months ago, FEMA told the county it would have to return about $35,000 of the money it had already collected.

And FEMA also told the county it couldn’t collect some of the remaining grant money that it hadn’t already tried to collect.

The Marquette County Road Commission did more work than county officials expected the road would need when they applied for the grant.

The county appealed to fema and heard back from the agency last week.

County Administrator Scott Erbisch says FEMA will now let the county collect grant money for all aspects of the project that it had originally budgeted for when it applied for the grant.

He says the extra work that wasn’t budgeted for won’t be covered by FEMA.

The Superior Watershed Partnership joined the county in the grant application, and so did the Road Commission.

The total project cost was about $96,000, including the extra work.

That means the project came in about $55,000 under budget.