No matter what proposal is picked, NRD will need additional funds

Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District is going to need help paying for major flood control measures in the northern half of the watershed, one NRD official said.

Thursday evening, NRD officials and staff with engineering firm HDR held the last of three public meetings to outline possible flood control measures and get public input.

Water resources engineer John Engel said Omaha-based engineering firm HDR was hired in January 2006 to examine possible solutions to flooding threats along the Papillion Creek system that includes Washington and Douglas counties.

Engel's presentation Thursday night focused on five proposals that NRD officials said are still on the table. Three of those include dry dam structures that would only hold water after a heavy rain to allow overflow water to funnel slowly into the creek system.

The other two proposals include dams that create permanent reservoirs in Washington County and extreme northern Douglas County.

One would create two reservoirs: One north of Kennard and one just north of Nebraska Highway 36 that would flood most of the village of Washington.

The other only includes the southern most reservoir.

HDR senior environmental engineer Dick Gordon said he doesn't think people understand the real flooding threat facing the watershed, especially Omaha.

“Keep in mind that water runs south,” Gordon said. “So any flooding in the watershed is going to drain down to Omaha.”

The situation is worse than it has ever been, he said. Continued development on the fringes of Omaha is to blame.

“I grew up in the Rockbrook area,” he said. “In the 1960s, that was the west edge of Omaha. Now, it's geographically midtown. Half of the city has been built since the 1960s. That's the problem.”

Rick Mangold pointed at a location on a map around the Highway 64 and 144th Street intersection.

“This is where there's a Home Depot and a Lowe's now,” Mangold said. “I used to go pheasant hunting there.”

The additional concrete and rooftops create additional runoff into the creek system, Gordon said. Along with that, as more and more of the area is developed, those developments are removing conservation measures that were in place before.

Papio-Missouri River NRD general manager John Winkler said the threat will continue to escalate.

“It's anticipated that the watershed will be completely built up by the year 2040,” he said. “We only have 20 to 30 years where we have an opportunity to do this. It's also anticipated the this whole area will be platted completely in 10 years.

“There's a time crunch that we have to make a decision how we will handle stormwater and flood control in the district.”

Time isn't the only issue facing NRD officials, he said. Regardless of which proposal is adopted by the NRD's board of directors, they will have to find a way to fund it.

Winkler said there is not enough in the NRD's annual budget to handle a project this large. With an overall budget of about $41 million, the NRD has about $10 million in its budget for flood control measures.

“That's for everything we do,” he said. “We certainly don't have the money in our budget to handle a project like this.”

But Winkler said there is a solution to the funding problem, but they will need help.

“We need the Legislature to give us bonding authority so we can issue bonds to pay for whichever proposal is chosen,” he said. “This would be a project that would be completed over time. We wouldn't have bonds issued all at once.”

The NRD's levying authority allows its board to set a levy of up to 4.5 cents, he said. Currently, the Papio-Missouri River NRD has a levy of about 3.8 cents. The levy for the next fiscal year is expected to drop nearly 1 cent.

“We've calculated, and we can do this without going over the limit of our levying authority,” he said. “It's going to take some time, but we can do it. It would be incrementally done over 20 to 40 years.

“We want to put a leash on ourselves,” he continued. “We want to do this in a responsible manner over a several year period.”

About 270 people attended the public meeting.

Gary Petersen said he favors a dry dam solution.

“I grew up near Herman,” Petersen said. “Part of the town always flooded when there was a lot of rain. They put a dry dam on some farmland nearby. That fixed the problem.”

Engel said HDR would give a final report to the NRD by late July.

Winkler said all of the options will be considered, but a hydrology study still needs to be completed before all of the information is available to them.

“We're waiting for the final report and analysis,” he said. “There isn't a favorite option. We're going to look at all of the options on the table.”