Manatee County and City of Bradenton officials used a joint meeting on Feb. 21 to review storm‑response lessons and to outline planned wastewater and stormwater work paired with a nearly $253 million HUD Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG‑DR) award to the county.

Manatee County Utilities Director Patrick Shea described system vulnerabilities that worsen during heavy rainfall: aging clay and cast iron sanitary pipes, deteriorated manholes and inflow and infiltration (I&I) that can increase wastewater flows from typical averages (~7 million gallons per day) to 25–30 million gallons per day during storm events. Shea said the county and city jointly operate multiple interconnects and that staff worked overnight during recent storms to provide emergency water service to Blake Hospital.

Why it matters: County officials said I&I and an aging collection system drove recent treatment and discharge challenges and that reducing inflow through pipe lining and lateral repairs is a priority to reduce wet‑weather loading on treatment plants. They also outlined plant improvements such as clarifier replacement and the addition of equalization/storage (reject/reuse) capacity.

CDBG‑DR funding and requests: Michelle Davis, Manatee County grant administration division manager, presented preliminary project requests and the county’s CDBG‑DR application status. She said the county has submitted nearly $963 million in project requests covering housing, infrastructure and program services; the Bradenton area portion of requests totaled roughly $677 million. The HUD award the county received is nearly $253 million; Davis summarized categories of projects submitted for consideration, including:

- Housing (evacuation trailers, repairs, mobile‑home replacements, rental/mortgage assistance, reconstruction) — city requests totaled about $119 million.
- Infrastructure mitigation (stormwater and related utilities upgrades) — Bradenton area requested roughly $137 million.
- Flood mitigation (projects totaling $265 million for Bradenton area submissions; $131 million of those are fully within 100% low‑to‑moderate‑income census tracts in the city).
- Program services and equipment (generators and facility repairs) — submissions totaled tens of millions.

Davis said the HUD guidance (corporate notice) remains under review and the county is awaiting final deadlines and guidance revisions before allocations are finalized. County and city officials emphasized that CDBG‑DR funds come with federal rules that shape eligible projects and that the county intends to prioritize "shovel‑ready" projects and projects that address low‑to‑moderate‑income (LMI) neighborhoods.

Operational next steps: City and county staff discussed using the county as the grant recipient to administer funds and described a two‑step approach commonly used for large grants: (1) hire a grant administration consultant to ensure compliance and manage application and reporting requirements; and (2) hire project administrators to oversee construction procurement and ensure technical compliance with federal rules.

Ending: Elected officials agreed to continue coordinating project lists, engineering, permitting and procurement to ready CDBG‑DR projects; commissioners asked city staff to identify priority projects that the county can include in the county‑administered application.