| Cities receive funds for flood control projects | |
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Suzanne Adams Kingman Daily Miner | |
KINGMAN - In an ironic twist of fate, the Board of Supervisors asked representatives from the three major cities and Colorado City to present a prioritized list of flood control projects Monday, a day before a flash flood warning was issued for Mohave County. The intergovernmental agreements between the county's flood control district and each of the four cities were approved in June, but Board Chairman Buster Johnson asked the Board to reconsider the funding because the county expects to take in less money through property taxes this year and he wanted to give the cities a chance to prioritize their projects. Greg Henry, an engineer for the city of Kingman, said the city has 10 projects that it hopes to fund. The most important project was improvements to Johnson Canyon Wash. The wash runs past the downtown Kingman wastewater treatment plant, Henry said. The city is under a state mandate to upgrade the plant and remove it from the wash's flood plain. Work on the project has already been started, he said. The city has already installed a box culvert to divert a 100-year flood flow and is currently working on widening the wash channel in order to bring the plant out of the flood zone. The project will also include erosion control measures. The city plans to use the majority of the more than $855,000 it receives in county flood control funds to pay for the more than $2 million project, Henry said. The remaining portion of the project will be funded through a loan from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona. If the city doesn't get the funding from the county, it will have to increase the amount of the loan from WIFA, Henry said. The increase in the loan would amount to a 10 percent increase in wastewater bills for customers, including Mohave County. The county administration building, jail and courts are all connected to the Kingman wastewater system. Next up was a Bullhead City official who described several projects the city expects to fund with the $1.3 million in flood control dollars it expects to get from the county. Projects include improving control of the Chaparral/Havasupai and Montana washes and stabilizing the slope of Silver Creek to prevent Silver Creek Road from washing away. Lake Havasu City Public Works Director Mark Clark said the city has numerous projects it plans to spend the $2.5 million it will receive from the county including the Kiowa drain project, the Pima Wash project and the Mockingbird Wash area. Colorado City officials didn't attend the meeting but met with staff on Friday to discuss the $22,000 slated for their projects, which included repairing damage from the December 2010 storm that flooded parts of the Beaver Dam/Littlefield area. After each presentation, each city official was presented with a check containing the agreed upon flood control funds. | |
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KingmanDailyMiner.com Originally published September 14, 2011 | |
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