Two More Stormwater Projects Complete
Friday, February 28th, 2025
The City of Dalton has been hard at work for more than five years to implement its 21st Century Stormwater Management Plan. Recent months have seen the completion of two more stormwater management projects that will help reduce flooding issues in Dalton. Both the Prater Alley Stormwater Detention Project and the Valley Drive Streambank Stabilization Project have changed the landscape near downtown Dalton.
Caption: Newly installed landscaping features stand next to the new Prater Alley Stormwater Detention Pond.
Dalton Public Works has recently put the finishing touches on landscaping around Prater Alley project. Where two buildings once stood adjacent to City Hall, now there is a large stormwater detention pond. The City acquired the properties last year to make way for the stormwater improvements. The project's designers included retaining walls, fencing, and a fountain in the pond to improve its appearance given the retaining pond's location near the heart of downtown Dalton. Unlike other stormwater features, the Prater Alley pond will always have water in it.
"There was a creek that ran through along Prater Alley and there were flooding concerns downstream of the location. So what we did was take runoff from multiple properties as well as the City infrastructure and gave it a place to stage up during intense storm events to help mitigate the flooding issues downstream," said Public Works Director Chad Townsend. "We knew we had a high water table in the area so we over-excavated the pond knowing that it would have water in it year round while also still providing like a flood release area during intense storm events."
The Valley Drive Streambank Stabilization Work was completed at the end of 2024. The work on the project was visible from Walnut Avenue near its intersection with Thornton Avenue. It is the fourth of the four phases of the Walnut North Drainage Improvements package which is reducing flooding issues downstream from the West Hill Cemetery.
"We were stabilizing the stream banks where there was some property degradation due to stormwater runoff," Townsend said.
In 2020, the engineering consulting firm Arcadis recommended 30 projects to reduce flooding concerns and improve stormwater management in the City as part of Dalton's "21st Century Stormwater Plan." City leaders estimate that they are now more than a third of the way through that list, and the Prater Alley and Valley Drive projects are two more check marks on the list.
"It's good to get the work done. We've solved a lot of a lot of issues. We've still got a lot more to solve, but it's good to see this initial push of projects kind of getting complete," Townsend said. "We still have some that are near term getting started, but a lot of these bigger initial projects are either complete or well underway, so it's exciting to see."
