Recovery mostly complete along Wapsi, Turkey, Upper Iowa rivers

Recovery is virtually complete in cities along three Eastern Iowa rivers that reached record flood crests in June 2008.

On June 9, the Upper Iowa River at Decorah crested at 17.9 feet - 2.7 feet higher than the 1941 record - causing more than $1 million damage to city infrastructure.

On June 10, the Turkey River at Elkader crested at 30.9 feet - more than 2.5 times higher than the 12-foot flood stage and well above the 1991 record of 27.3 feet. Damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure exceeded $6 million.

On June 13, the Wapsipinicon, fueled by a rampaging Buffalo Creek, crested at a record 18.25 feet at Anamosa, causing damage estimated at $4.5 million.

Anamosa City Administrator Patrick Callahan says the recovery is 95 percent complete there. The only remaining major project, he says, is repairing the flood-damaged footbridge that connects the town with Wapsipinicon State Park.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has verbally approved funding of the $260,000 project, and the city is awaiting written confirmation, he says.

Damage to city infrastructure, including the wastewater treatment plant and a maintenance building, totaled nearly $4 million.

The new wastewater operations building has been elevated to a level well above the record flood, and the city has hired engineers to study a levee system that would protect school athletic fields and nearby residential areas, he says.

The city also will begin a major flood-mitigation project this fall with construction, above the 100-year flood plain, of a $6.7 million activated-sludge wastewater treatment system.

The city's outdated trickling filter system needed to be upgraded, and the flood provided the incentive to put the new system on higher ground, Callahan says.

Most of the funding will come from a Community Development Block Grant authorized in the federal stimulus bill and a grant from the state I-JOBS program, Callahan says.

In Elkader, City Administrator Jennifer Cowsert says flood recovery is 90 percent complete. Of 29 homes eligible for a flood-mitigation buyout, the city has purchased 25 and the Department of Transportation has purchased two, with two declining the buyout offer, Cowsert says.

Asbestos abatement has been approved, and demolition is expected to begin later this year.

Mayor Bob Garms says he hopes some of the flood-damaged homes can be moved rather than demolished.

The single-largest pending flood-related project is construction of a $1.2 million fire station to replace the one weakened by the flood but still being used.

“It's in the design stage now, and we hope to break ground this summer,” Garms says.

Cowsert says planning is under way to convert 6.3 acres in the buyout zone to a city park.

In Decorah, flood recovery is complete, except for accounting details, says City Administrator Gerald Freund.

Though many houses had water in their basements, a heroic effort by area farmers prevented their ruination. The farmers mobilized rapidly with tractor-powered equipment and pumped more than 22 million gallons across the levee into the river, Freund says.

Since the flood, the city has fortified eroded sections of the levee with riprap, or concrete scrap, he says.

The recovery has been slower for farm fields eroded by the June 2008 floods.

Vern Dietzenbach of rural Fort Atkinson, who farms along the Turkey River, says he has reclaimed 12 of the 16 acres of bottomland he lost to the flood. Dietzenbach says he's farming subsoil rather than topsoil, which is gone.

The subsoil is sticky and tacky - not “mellow” like good farm ground - and has had to be amended with solid and liquid manure, he says.

Much of the rock exposed by the erosion has been moved to field edges to create a 3-foot berm to provide protection from future floods.

“It has taken a lot of money, work and time, but it does not look too bad,” he says.

He figures it has cost $2,700 per acre to reclaim it.

“It is not as good as it was, but it is better than I thought it could be,” he says.