While flood-weary city residents who live near Sullivan Run and cleaned up muddy water yet again on Saturday may be tired of hearing it, help is on the way.

Mayor Ben Smith said Monday that city officials have done all they can to facilitate the Sullivan Run Improvement Project, which was approved by city council in November 2008.

Smith said the project — which will involve dredging the creek, removing and replacing certain culverts and reshaping Sullivan Run in specific areas to reduce the flood plain and open up the creek — is in the hands of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

“The city is ready to go,” he said. “We are in a better position right now than we ever have been. It’s just that we can’t do anything without (the DEP’s) final go-ahead.”

Natalie Franko has owned two rental properties on West Brady Street beside Sullivan Run for 25 years. She said the creek has flooded 20 times in those years.

“It has flooded four times this summer,” she said.

Franko said one problem is that debris from upstream collects at the bridge on West Brady, which backs up the water and sends it flowing into the yards and basements of homes upstream.

“Every time it rains, all of us go rushing down there and pull out the debris log by log,” she said. “That’s the only way we can protect our property.”

She said the Army Corps of Engineers promised to dredge the creek as soon as possible after a devastating flood in 2017 filled many basements with muddy water from the gushing, overwhelmed Sullivan Run.

“They put it on their emergency list and said they would be there, and they never came,” Franko said.

This is an excerpt — pick up Tuesday’s Butler Eagle to read the full article what homeowners and renters have been dealing with for decades.