The Jefferson County Commission on Thursday is set to authorize an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior to renew funding for 13 continuous-record stream flow gauging stations.

The county will pay $229,210 in this joint funding agreement.

The agreement, which was moved to Thursday’s commission agenda during the committee meeting on Tuesday, pays for data-collection platforms that provide water quality monitoring of temperatures, specific-conductance and dissolved oxygen at seven of those stations.

“We fund a dozen or more stream-gauging stations across the county,” Environmental Services Director David Denard said. “USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) maintains stream gauges all across the country. We pay basically for a select number of stream gauges. We’ll share on the cost 50%.”

Monitored waterways include Village Creek, Valley Creek, Turkey Creek, Five Mile Creek, Cahaba River and Little Cahaba River.

“Each one of our (water treatment) plants has its own discharge permit and those are issued by ADEM,” Denard said of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. “They’ll still have a dozen different parameters but they monitor and regulate. It helps us be able to set those and help ADEM have information, too.”

Thursday’s commission agenda also includes a funding agreement with the Alabama Department of Transportation. That is an ATRIP II project grant agreement for the intersection of Grants Mill Road and Alabama 119.

ALDOT will receive $2 million in ATRIP II funds for improvements to that intersection.

The agenda also includes a plan required by the state’s Rebuild Alabama Act. That     act levied an additional excise tax on gasoline, and the county has to submit a plan for its use of the money for maintenance, improvement and construction of roads.