Cedar Rapids readies for flood control work in 2016

CEDAR RAPIDS - A flood control system is more than walls and levees, and next construction season will give residents a first look at two of the system's other components - a pump station and a section of river walk.

The pump station will go up in New Bohemia at the Cedar River and 10th Avenue SE and will look similar to the former brick school building there along Second Street SE.

The first stretch of river walk will be built in front of the CRST Inc. building, which is now under construction in the 200 block of First Street SE, Rob Davis, the city's flood control manager, told the City Council's Flood Control System Committee on Thursday.

In total, the city's $600-million system will feature 11 pump stations, which are needed to pump rain water that collects behind flood walls and levees over the walls and levees when the river is higher than the storm sewer outlets into the river.

Davis told the committee that the city and its engineering consultants are working to correctly size the pump stations so they can handle water at times of heavy rain when the river is in flood stage.

Two of the pump stations will be at the Quaker Co. site, but others will be designed so they looked like other buildings in a neighborhood.

Council member Ann Poe, chairwoman of the Flood Control System Committee, said her tour of pumps stations in Grand Forks and Fargo, N.D., showed her how pump stations there 'perfectly fit” the neighborhoods in which they were build.

The 10th Avenue SE pump station will stand about two stories tall and cost $5 million, Davis said.

Another pump station, the Sinclair pump station, will be positioned on the former Sinclair plant site, and Davis said it will need to be larger and more expensive if the city decides to reduce the size of a water detention area on the Sinclair site from 17 acres to 11 acres to allow more commercial development there.

Trees along the river at the Sinclair site will be cleared to prepare for the construction of a levee there, and the work must be done by March before an endangered bat species takes to the trees, Davis said. He said the remaining buildings on the Sinclair site will come down next year as well.

The city is focusing its early work on the flood control system in New Bohemia and across the river in Czech Village because both spots are low-lying commercial areas.

Davis said construction of earthen levees there should begin in 2017. The earthen levee at New Bohemia will reduce the existing city parking lot along the river by about 45 percent, he said.

He said removable flood walls will protect the Czech Village commercial area.

All of the work at New Bohemia and Czech Village will be paid for with state flood control funds.

At the same time, Davis said the city is moving ahead with the design of protection around the Tree of Five Seasons Park between the Quaker Co. plant and First Avenue East to make sure the city has 'shovel-ready” parts of the system ready should Congress provide a piece of the federal government's $70-plus-million funding to the project.

The Flood Control System Committee approved an amendment to the city's flood control policy that calls for consistent aesthetic guidelines so what is designed and built in the first parts of the system fits with is designed and built years later. It could take 20 years to complete the project.

The city has engineering and design consultants working on the project who will comprise a design review team along with city staff members. The city's Visual Arts Commission, Flood Control System Committee and the City Council all will be part of the design process.

Council member Pat Shey, an attorney, said he was glad the design wouldn't be left to him.

Also in 2016, work will continue on a project to add a new pump station and to raise the flood wall at the Quaker Co. plant. The work is being paid for with federal Community Development Block Grant funds the city obtained after the 2008 flood.