After years of litigation, the wait is finally over. Poplarville residents will start seeing activity next week to repair and repave the worst of its city streets.

Mayor Billy Spiers said W.A. Warren Construction will begin work Monday, Feb. 11, with a targeted completion date of April 25, to repair and repave three miles of city streets.

This initial phase of street repairs is targeting specific areas where the road bed was most severely damaged as a result of a faulty sewer line construction project in the mid-1990s.

The streets targeted for immediate repair and repaving are: Julia, Doyle, Church, South Main, North Main, Dauphine, North Columbia, West Ida, Scott, West McClendon, Martin, South McGehee, Parker, Roy and Raine Streets.

Following this initial construction project, Spiers said the city is planning to float a bond issue to pay for repaving the remaining streets.

During this week’s meeting of the city board, both the mayor and aldermen wanted to remind citizens the initial three miles of repaving streets is being paid for with monies received in the lawsuit settlement in conjunction with monies taken out of the general fund.

“This is not costing citizens any more money out of their pockets,” Spiers said.

The city received a sum of $104,000 in the lawsuit settlement to repair the 24 locations affected by improper compaction of fill dirt surrounding the sewer pipes. Total cost for the entire three-mile project is $496,313.

Also beginning Monday, construction will begin on a project to build new ADA-compliant sidewalks with brick-trimmed handicapped ramps and brick planters on the Main Street block between Martin Luther King Drive and Erlanger Street.

The $47,390 contract is part of the city’s plans to bring all of its sidewalks into compliance with the American Disabilities Act. The new sidewalk will also feature a scored concrete grid at each end to alert a blind person he or she is approaching an intersection.

The city had already received notice it was awarded a grant of approximately $400,000 to redo all existing sidewalks to bring them into compliance with ADA standards. The remaining sidewalks will also feature the brick-trimmed, handicapped-accessible ramps and scored concrete grids.