Healthy foods and opportunities for exercise may become easier to come by in Marion after the town’s Board of Aldermen moved forward with several grant opportunities in its regular meeting Tuesday.

Mississippi Department of Health’s Cindy Baker said Marion is able to apply for a Mayoral Health Council grant through her agency that can be used to improve health equity for Marion residents. The grant focuses on expanding access to healthy foods and increasing opportunities for recreation, she said.

“It’s a health equity grant,” she said. “The purpose is to create healthy environments through policy and environmental change that support increased access to physical activity healthy foods and reduce exposure to tobacco or tobacco smoke for the purpose of reducing the prevalence of heart disease and stroke.”

With the grant funding, Baker said the town will be able to create an action plan and establish benchmarks to gauge its progress in improving health equity in Marion. The grant, which has a maximum award of $5,000, can be reapplied for each year, she said, with the funding used to build on previous years’ success.

“It’s kind of like a building block,” she said. “You’re starting and then we’ll figure out an action plan or what your community really needs and we’ll have an action plan to make that come to fruition.”

Aldermen also approved bringing in Darrin Mitchell Jr. and N’spire Walker to serve as grant administrators for the project at a cost of $1,000 each. Mayor Larry Gill said the two administrators will be tasked with meeting the benchmarks and keeping the town’s progress on track.

“They’re going to be doing all the different benchmarks for us for this grant,” he said.

Mitchell, a personal trainer, is the founder of BTBY Way of Life, a nonprofit organization working to help people become healthier and find ways to be more active. Walker, who is the daughter of Meridian City Councilwoman Romande Walker, is the founder of N’Spired Afrocise, which combines exercise with traditional African dance.

In a separate grant opportunity, Marion Aldermen approved a resolution for recreation improvement, which is needed for a recreational trail grant. Gill said East Central Planning and Development District, which is helping the town with its grant application, said the resolution was needed to move forward.

Marion is applying for a grant through the Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks to develop a recreation area in the empty lot behind town hall. The grant funding would cover up to 80% of the project with the town committing the remaining 20% of the funds.

In other business, Town Engineer Shaun Miles said the town has finally received approval to move forward with construction of a new freshwater treatment facility near the Pleasant Acres subdivision. Marion was awarded a $3.4 million grant through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2022 to fund the new facility, which will have the capability of providing up to 600 gallons of clean water.

The project has been on hold since town officials and Corps of Engineers command staff signed the grant documents in September 2022 as the Corps worked to complete an environmental study at the proposed site of the new plant. The study took longer than initially expected due to concerns about the impact to a certain species of bat.

Miles said the town was given a green light to move forward with the project Monday and will be working to put out for bids in the near future.

While aldermen celebrated the good news on the freshwater side of things, pump issues in the wastewater system are expected to bring a hefty bill.

Water Department Supervisor Andrew Bateman said one of the pumps in the main lift station that transports Marion’s sewage to Dalewood for treatment needs to be rebuilt at a cost of $16,988.14. Marion needs the pump up and running for its wastewater system to work properly, he said, and there isn’t much of a choice except to pay the rebuild cost.

“It’s got to be done,” he said.

Without the pump operational, the town is pumping sewage to Meridian, which is closer than Dalewood but more expensive, Bateman said. The difference in cost will quickly exceed the cost of the pump rebuild.

“The repair on that pump will pay for itself in one month pumping to the city of Meridian,” he said.

Although rebuilding the pump is expensive, Miles said it is still much cheaper than buying a new one. The cost of a new pump capable of meeting the town’s needs, he said, will likely cost $50,000 to $60,000.