The stream in Cumming City Park soon will have a new look.

As part of a recent settlement, the city has hired C.S. Britton Inc. to improve the stream, which winds through the park off Pilgrim Mill Road.

Scott Morgan, the city's director of planning and zoning, said the nearly $35,000 bid submitted by the Douglasville-based environmental contractor was the lowest.

Other bids for the project, whose goal Morgan said is to make the stream look more natural, came in at more than $50,000.

"This will involve taking out some cross ties and temporarily removing a pedestrian bridge over the stream while they do things like add ripples and small water falls," Morgan said.

"The pedestrian bridge will then be added back."

Tuesday night, the city council and mayor unanimously approved the project, which Morgan said could be finished as early as April 15.

The project is part of a settlement between the city and the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper that was reached in February 2010.

The Riverkeeper group had sued over violations of state and federal environmental regulations resulting from work at the site of the Cumming Aquatic Center site on Pilgrim Mill Road.

As part of the deal, the city is also required to support environmental programs.

It has also pledged to comply with a list of conditions from the state's Environmental Protection Agency and paid a $40,000 fine.