COCONINO COUNTY — The Coconino County Flood Control District (District) recently completed upwards of $35 million in on-forest watershed restoration and neighborhood flood mitigation in five flood corridors including Phase 1 of the Schultz Creek on-forest measures.
The Wupatki Trails and Brandis Way watersheds experienced 100-year rainfall events today, July 30, with a total of three inches of rainfall in two hours, with most of the rainfall concentrated in the first hour. The District is pleased to report this evening the recently completed measures both on- and off-forest performed exceptionally well with no flood impacts to roads or private property in those areas.
“If this level of rainfall events had occurred last year, then these areas would have experienced tremendous flood impacts. I want to commend our consulting engineers, Natural Channel Design and Civiltec Engineering, our contractor, Tiffany Construction and our District Team for recently completing over $35 million of projects in these and other flood corridors. Given the long winter and other issues outside the control of the District, this was an amazing accomplishment and now it is paying off to real benefits for these areas,” stated Lucinda Andreani, Flood Control District Administrator.
She also extended her appreciation to Senators Kelly and Sinema, former Congressman O’Halleran and the District’s Board of Directors for securing the funding necessary to implement the long-term flood mitigation plan. And importantly she thanks the residents of Wupatki Trails who cooperated with the District to get those projects done in record time.
The greatest flood impacts today were seen in the Peaceful Way Flood Corridor where there was significant rainfall as well. The District is working with property owners in this area to effectuate long-term flood mitigation before the 2024 monsoon season.
“Clearly the results from our efforts in the Wupatki Trails and Brandis Way areas show that the District’s strategy can create important improvements in flood mitigation for private properties,” Andreani added. “Hopefully this will result in strong cooperation from property owners in the Peaceful Way, Copeland and Government Tank Flood Corridors so we can attempt to achieve similar results there too.”
The District’s goal is to achieve a 25-year post-wildfire design for flood mitigation, which is the equivalent of two inches of rain in 45 minutes. We remind the public that many factors influence the ultimate design of the long-term flood mitigation measures and that the District cannot mitigate every rainfall event. As it is the beginning of the monsoon season, in some corridors the ground is just getting saturated, we will not know the real capacity of the new systems until we get through a complete monsoon season. The District strongly encourages residents to maintain their short-term flood mitigation throughout the monsoon season.
Engineering is underway in the Copeland and Peaceful Way Flood Corridors and getting underway in the Government Tank Flood Corridor. The District has been focusing on securing Rights of Entries from private property owners so the engineering and environmental assessments can be completed, which underlies the engineering necessary to progress toward the goal of long-term mitigation constructed prior to the next monsoon season.
For updates on Coconino County’s Flood Mitigation Efforts, please visit the Flood Control District online at https://coconino.az.gov/2961/Flood-Corridor-Information