FERRIDAY — An emergency water grant worth a quarter-million dollars is on its way to Ferriday.

In a news release from the governor’s office Wednesday, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced the $250,000 grant had been awarded to Ferriday through Community Water Enrichment Fund.

“The CWEF grant gives the city the ability to make critical infrastructure improvements which will help improve the quality of life for their residents,” Jindal said. “Through this emergency funding, we can help ensure the residents of Ferriday have access to clean, safe drinking water.”

The new grant, in addition to funds the town already has on hand, can be used to show the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the town has money to pay them back for funding to get the existing water plant back online, McGlothin said.

The mayor thanked, the governor, Rep. Andy Anders and Sens. Neil Riser and Francis Thompson for working to secure the funding.

“When this came through, I got a call from (Riser’s) office, and they thanked me for my persistence,” McGlothin said. “I don’t know if it was my persistence or they just got tired of listening to me.”

On the heels of the announced funding, McGlothin said the town council will have a special meeting at 6 p.m. Monday to declare a state of emergency.

The overall water situation — the town has been under a boil-water order since May 12 — has already been declared an emergency, but this declaration will focus specifically on the water tank, McGlothin said.

“Once we declare an emergency we won’t have to advertise for 30 days under bid law,” McGlothin said. “We can say, ‘We’ve declared an emergency and we need your bids now.’”

When the bids are received and awarded, the town can build a new tank at the plant and get off the boil-water notice, which was put in place because the existing tank has a large hole in it.

McGlothin said he has spoken with several parties interested in bidding on the tank, and they said it would take 8-12 weeks to deliver the tank because it would have to be manufactured first.

“They said they would send a big crew down here to put it up quickly,” McGlothin said.

The new tank will be placed next to the existing one, and — though its current purpose is to get the town off of the boil-water notice — will eventually be used as part of the permanent solution to the water problems when the new plant is built, McGlothin said.

“We have got to run this plant for three more years (until the new one is built), so we have got to do it right,” he said. “We have been given money three different times to fix this plant, and we didn’t do the maintenance, so now (the USDA is) going over this with a fine tooth comb.”

Though he is not sure it will happen, McGlothin said he would like to see if the town can eventually get a grant to rehabilitate the old tank, which would help with the town’s fire rating by having more backup water.