Bonita Lakes may get an upgraded spillway after the Meridian City Council on Tuesday moved forward with designs for the park’s project.

The green space, known for its recreational offerings including mountain bike and horse trails, boating and fishing and a walking path, is not officially a park. Instead, Bonita is a watershed, a backup water supply for Meridian should something go wrong with the city’s wells.

Assistant Public Works Director Mike Van Zandt said the city is required to do a formal inspection of Bonita Lakes every five years and submit those results to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for review. This summer, he said, MDEQ sent the city a letter saying Bonita’s spillway is not equipped with a spillway large enough to handle a maximum rainfall event.

“We need to upgrade the ability of the lake to release 46 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, he said.

The council approved a task order for $10,000 with Engineering Plus to draw up plans to add a second spillway. While the city will need to look at constructing the new spillway in the future, having plans will bring the city into compliance with MDEQ’s current requirements, Van Zandt said.

The project, which will be for the lower dam at Bonita Lakes, is not a repair, Van Zandt said, and there is nothing wrong with the dam that is currently in place. The work is needed due to a change in the standards, he said.

“It’s a change in the standard, and so we have to meet the new standard,” he said. “The dam is still solid.”

Police Cameras

In other business, Meridian Police Department is making progress on building a network of security cameras which will feed into the future Real Time Crime Center. Assistant Chief Patrick Gale said the department signed off on the final blueprints earlier this week and will be bringing the plan to the council to review.

The RTCC, which is set to be built in an unused addition on the south end of the police station, will provide 24/7 monitoring of the city’s camera network and set the stage for gunshot detection, license plate readers and other technology that can help law enforcement find and detain suspected criminals.

The city currently has cameras operational in Highland Park, Gale said, and MPD officials have the ability to view the feeds from their computers. Without the RTCC, however, the feeds are not monitored around the clock, he said.

The department has also drawn up plans for where it wants to install additional cameras, Gale said, including along the city’s thoroughfares and in high crime areas.

Mayor Jimmie Smith said he would like to see cameras at all public properties throughout the city.