MARSHALL — The next phase of drainage improvements in the neighborhood around Legion Field Road will be moving forward. This week, the Marshall City Council approved agreements with BNSF Railway for work including installing a stormwater pipeline crossing underneath the railroad.

In some ways, the council was re-authorizing the project work, said Marshall Public Works Director Jason Anderson.

“We thought we were ready to bid the project early last year, and then we ran into kind of a snafu with (BNSF) Railroad and the permitting process,” Anderson said.

“It wasn’t any issue with our plans, our staff’s work or effort,” Anderson said. He said it was just “really tough” to get regular communications from the railroad. “Unfortunately, this project has been pushed back.”

Over the past several years, the city has been making drainage and stormwater improvements in the neighborhood around Legion Field Road. The third and final phase of the project is planned to include clearing and grading about 1,100 feet of BNSF Railroad ditch, as well as installing a new stormwater pipe crossing of the railroad near Glenn Street. The pipeline will help move stormwater to a new retention pond on city-owned land north of the Nexus Apartments.

“We do have an $867,000 MPCA resiliency grant that we secured a few years back for this project,” Anderson said.

There were two agreements with BNSF Railway that the city would need to approve for the project, Anderson said.

One was a temporary occupancy permit, and one was a pipeline license.

“The occupancy permit is to allow our city and its contractors to access the BNSF railroad right of way to do tree clearing, grubbing and regrading,” he said.

The pipeline license would allow the city to bore a 42-inch concrete pipe beneath the railroad.

The agreements do have some fiscal impact for the city. City council agenda materials said the temporary occupancy permit had a cost of $1,350, plus $1,221 in insurance costs. The pipeline license had a cost of $5,265, plus $1,899 in insurance costs.

“In addition to those costs, we do have to pay (the railroad) to be on site, and one of their third-party engineers probably to be on site. And they do have to have flagging operations as well,” Anderson said.

That cost would be about $1,500 per day, plus a $450 mobilization charge.

In separate motions, Marshall City Council members approved the temporary occupancy permit, and the pipeline license.