Excavation of the grassy median running down the center of Suburban Parkway in Oakland Beach started with a full-court press last fall and then just as quickly stopped.

Now, residents are questioning what happened and what is being planned for the area. Their questions will be answered Thursday at a neighborhood meeting starting at 7 p.m. at the JONAH building.

But there’s no mystery to it, says chief of staff and public works director David Picozzi. Simply put, the work being done by the Narragansett Improvement Co. was interrupted for the winter.

Fine, but why start the job that is designed to reduce pollutants released into Warwick and Brush Neck Coves in late fall knowing it would have to come to a halt for the winter?

The answer is money, or rather the prospect the city could lose an EPA $180,000 Southeast New England Program for Coastal Watershed Restoration grant if the project isn’t completed this June.

Work done this fall, Picozzi explains, gives the city at least a couple of weeks jump on what has to be done this spring. It’s a form of insurance that bad weather or some other interruption won’t put a kink in the job.

City Engineer Eric Earls points out the project isn’t designed to mitigate a local flood. Instead, the intent is to create a basin the length of Suburban Parkway that will allow pollutants to settle out of storm water runoff before it either drains east toward Warwick Cove or West to Brush Neck Cove. To accomplish this, the grassy strip down the middle of the parkway is being excavated below the existing drains. The retaining ditches will have a sub-base of sand and will be planted with grass to allow for the water to filtrate into the ground.

The objective is to avoid the “first flush” from a downpour from carrying oil and other pollutants into Greenwich Bay.

Earls said the overall cost of the project is $220,000. Matching city funds will come from a federal Community Development Block Grant. The city will also provide some in-kind services. Earls said the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program based at URI, Save the Bay and Crossman Engineering played key roles in the design of the project.