FLAGSTAFF, AZ – On Tuesday January 14, the Coconino County Flood Control District (District) Board of Directors approved investing about $12 million in a set of projects in support of post-wildfire flood mitigation in the Government Tank Flood Corridor, the ninth and final flood corridor to be mitigated by the District in response to the 2022 Pipeline Fire. Work in this area has now begun, starting with expansion and reconstruction of on-forest flood mitigation berms near Cinder Lake Landfill.
“This is the home stretch,” Lucinda Andreani, Flood Control District Administrator said. “This has been a challenging area, but when we complete flood mitigation in the Government Tank Flood Corridor, we will have completed the projects funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and U.S. Forest Service to mitigate the devastating post-wildfire flooding left in the wake of the Pipeline Fire.”
“It will be a challenge, but our goal remains to complete mitigation in the Government Tank Flood Corridor before monsoon 2025,” Andreani added.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the Board approved three “Guaranteed Maximum Price” agreements with the District’s Construction Manager-at-Risk, Tiffany Construction, effectively locking in a maximum price for the construction of several post-wildfire flood mitigation measures. In total, the Board approved over $11.6 million in Guaranteed Maximum Price agreements for construction in the Government Tank Flood Corridor.
The only project remaining in the Government Tank Flood Corridor is the Hwy. 89 Storm Drain Crossing. The highway crossing portion of the storm drainpipe system will be solely funded by the District since it is not an eligible cost under the NRCS grant. The contractor expects to go to construction on that project in April.
To date, the District has been awarded over $130 million in state and federal grants to address post-wildfire flooding across nine watersheds within the 2022 Pipeline Flood Area. They have implemented close to $100 million worth of watershed restoration and flood mitigation since funds have been awarded, including over 250 acres of watershed restoration, 7.5 miles of channel stabilization, 6 miles of flood channel and storm drainpipe, and nearly 270 separate flood control structures.
“I don’t think you can find the type of response and the type of mitigation—not to mention the speed at which it was accomplished—anywhere else in the country,” District 1 Supervisor Patrice Horstman said during Tuesday’s meeting. “The Flood Control District has done a great job, but there’s still more to do.”
With Tuesday’s Board approvals, the District is now poised to move construction forward in the ninth and final watershed within the Pipeline Flood Area. Post-wildfire flood mitigation in the eighth corridor—the Peaceful Way Flood Corridor—is currently under construction and on track to be completed by the end of February 2025. The District is also close to finalizing an agreement with the federal Department of Transportation, which will fund, in concert with a AZ SMART grant from the State Transportation Board, projects that mitigate the flood impacts to Hwy. 89 in the Pipeline Flood Area. With the State and District grant match funding, the funding for these projects totals over $19 million.
For more information, visit www.Coconino.az.gov/SchultzPipeline
