Report on City of Boulder (Colorado) Spring Flood Preparedness Meeting

Please feel free to pass this on to whomever. 

Last night, there was a public flood briefing at City Council from Mike Chard of Boulder Office of Emergency Management and Jeff Arthur, Boulder Public Works director.  The City Manager and 2 county Commissioners were there, as well as many folks from neighborhoods in Boulder.  No questions from the public were taken.  **Note that 4MiCaCr stands for Four Mile Canyon Creek, which runs through north Boulder**

Mike gave his presentation which was comprehensive, sobering, and much the same as I have reported in the previous email I sent you all about the meeting with Gary Sanfacon last week.  You can see the slides from his presentation at this link, which will give you a good summary. https://www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Briefing_Slides-1-201403181500.pdf (This pdf also includes a map of the City with sites marked where work needs to be done ASAP. I could not copy the map to insert it here, so be sure to check it out in the pdf.)  Basically, Boulder OEM has been making a “THIRA”, a planning document outlining risk from spring runoff, to get FEMA to pay for more mitigation for creeks this spring so we won’t go through another round of flooding in May and June.  They have been successful at securing the funding, and City and County are now proceeding to work down through their lists of hazards.  As I reported previously, the County has identified 205 sites that need immediate attention, and have a completion target of May 1 for getting all their work done.  A list of County work sites includes:

•43 Bank Stabilization

•94 Debris Removal

•3 Berm Construction

•18 Restore Conveyance

•2 Stream Design/Realignment

•28 Culvert Assessment

•17 Significant Home Damage(excludes homes totally destroyed)

After council asked some questions, Jeff Arthur then gave his presentation, which was short on facts, action plans, or commitments as to what Public Works would accomplish and by when.  It was long on all the things that individuals should do to protect themselves from spring flooding, such as checking sump pumps; reconfiguring downspouts, window wells, and French drains; installing sewer backup prevention valves; buying flood insurance and sewer spill insurance; having an evacuation plan and 3 days’ worth of supplies on hand to get through another emergency; using InquireBoulder to report problems and 911 to report emergencies.  This was not at all reassuring.  Jeff did not know the answers to many of Council’s questions, and had to defer to staff to answer them.  I was not impressed with his grasp of the situation, his command of his department, or his leadership in the 10 minutes in which he was talking.  Maybe it was a bad day.  Here are some highlights of what I learned:

1.       Whereas the County has set a completion date of May 1 for their target, the City has NO target date to complete the work necessary for spring run-off by.  Sediment removal on 4MiCaCr is going really well, but debris removal on Boulder Creek is in shambles.  The first contractor bowed out, the second was a space case and never got to work, and now they are contacting a third and 4^th to try get someone going on it.  Work on Gregory Creek is supposed to start next week.  Apparently Urban Drainage is paying for some work on 4MiCaCr up at the mouth of the canyon, next to Lee Hill, where it spilled to the north.  They are shutting off the northern channel to keep the creek in the south channel for the spring.  There has been or will be a little work in Open Space on 4MiCaCr where it spilled to the north through the storage lockers and Namaste, to shore up that bank as well.

2.      Whereas the County has identified 205 sites and committed to working on all of them, Jeff Arthur from the City would not come up with a number for places that needed to be fixed before run-off begins. The City has been having a hard time finding contractors and those contractors are much more expensive than anticipated.  Sediment and debris removal are the City’s main focus right now.  They will work on repairing drop structures and other things later.  After that, there will be a long term plan for even more work on creeks, but funding and resources are not identified for this work yet. Here is the list of sites in the City, according to Mike Chard, that have been identified as places that need attention.  There are 724 if them.  Look at the Map in the pdf referenced above to get a sense of where these places are.  Also check out  https://bouldercolorado.gov/pages/2014-flood-recovery-projects which has maps of all the drainages and work anticipated on them.

a.      •174 Bank Stabilization

b.      •159 Debris Removal

c.      •3 Berm Construction

d.      •261 Sediment Removal

e.      •1 Stream Design/Realignment

f.       •10 Culvert Damage

g.      •55 Drop Structures

h.      •23 Flood Walls

i.       •38 Significant Homes Damage(excludes homes totally destroyed)

3.      Whereas the County is committing to work on private property which needs mitigation if they can get the landowner’s permission, the City is not doing any work on private property, nor are they contacting landowners.  Their reasoning seems to be that they would only be cleaning things up to a 5 year flood level and would leave much debris and mess on someone’s property, which would not be acceptable to most residents.  Jeff encouraged private property owners along creeks to get contractors to clean up their own reaches of creek so they would not get flooded.  All City work will be restricted to City owned land or City easements.  Private Property owners along creeks do not need permits to get debris/sediment removed and to get the creek back to its pre-flood banks.  They DO need a permit though if they are going to change the configuration of the channel.

4.      The City will be holding 2 emergency preparedness Community meetings, one March 31^st in the Municipal Building, and one April 2 at Casey Middle School.  Check City website for details.https://bouldercolorado.gov/pages/2014-flood-recovery-preparedness-meetings   There will be a formal presentation on Flood preparedness, and then an Open House Format following, to give folks an opportunity to talk with staff.

5.      The Stream gauges on Boulder Creek are active and working well.  They will be able to report imminent flood threats.  The stream gauge on 4MiCaCr is lost, as are many on Left Hand creek and St Vrain.  The Lefthand and St Vrain ones will take quite a while to be replaced, because of channel changes.  Since the channel has moved, the gauges will have to be put in new places, and they aren’t sure where those places will be yet.  4MiCaCr gauge may be reinstalled some time sooner.  Emergency warnings on these creeks will be determined from weather information only, and not from stream levels.

6.      The City will be sending out letters offering annexation to specific County enclaves within the City in the next week or so.  This includes the neighborhoods of Githens Acres, Old Tale Road, and Cherryvale/Baseline.  I think they are hoping that the flood will give some of these folks incentive to annex.  They feel that they will be offering some special deals and incentives in terms of fees to try to entice folks to annex.