Engineer Briefs Booneville Commissioners on Infrastructure, Grant Project Updates

Paul Nesbitt of Nesbitt Engineering walked Booneville's Board of Commissioners through a wide-ranging infrastructure and grant-status briefing at the body's regular session on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, covering active projects on multiple fronts: water plant work, water-line projects, a sewer-redirect effort, and ongoing FEMA coordination.

Mayor Nelson Bobrowski called the meeting to order. The sewer-redirect work is part of a project in which Booneville is set to receive more than $1 million to improve the city's sewage system by eliminating two river crossings that were damaged during flooding, stemming in part from increased water pressure at those crossings. Mayor Bobrowski had previously credited the Kentucky River Area Development District and the Department for Local Government with helping secure funding for the effort, noting the project would "remove the sewer line from the riverbed in not just one location, but two locations" while also saving the city $1,000 a month in electric costs.

That funding flows through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, making the FEMA coordination component of Nesbitt's briefing a natural companion item. The awards were part of a broader $14.4 million package to improve water and wastewater infrastructure in Eastern Kentucky communities impacted by the 2022 floods.

Nesbitt Engineering serves government and private sector clients throughout Kentucky and has completed multi-million dollar infrastructure projects for municipalities across the region. Paul Nesbitt's experience spans planning and designing subdivisions, sewage collection systems and treatment plants, sanitary landfills, and water treatment and distribution systems, making his firm a recurring presence at Booneville commission meetings when complex utility work is on the agenda.

The March 11 briefing also touched on water plant work and water-line projects, though full technical specifics were not available from the meeting record. A reference to a subdivision-related item was noted in available materials, though details on that agenda point were not complete. No votes or motions on the engineering items were reflected in the available record from the session.

The Booneville Sentinel, which serves the people of Owsley County, published its account of the meeting on March 27, 2026, under the headline "Nesbitt Gives Updates on Several Projects at Council Meeting.