Flood-prone Fargo ahead of C.R. in funding flood protection

Fargo, N.D., and the smaller Moorhead, Minn., across the Red River are working as Cedar Rapids is to get backing from the Corps of Engineers and then funding from Congress for a new flood-protection system.

And Fargo appears well ahead of Cedar Rapids on one front - securing required local funds to match federal and state funds to pay for the project.

On Tuesday, voters in Cass County, North Dakota, of which Fargo is the county seat, approved a one-half percent sales tax to provide local funds for the Fargo-Moorhead flood-protection project. The city of Fargo earlier also had approved a one-half-percent sales tax, and in total, the sales taxes reportedly will raise an estimated $420 million over 20 years for the project.

The locally preferred Fargo-Moorhead project, which calls for a diversion channel west of Fargo, has a price tag of $1.5 billion, or four times the cost of Cedar Rapids' preferred plan.

The cost of Cedar Rapids' preferred plan is about $375 million, which would protect both sides of the Cedar River and feature more-costly, removable flood walls in the downtown and at Czech Village. The Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to recommend a no-frills, $100-million project for Cedar Rapids that protects only the east side of the river.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett has said the city of Cedar Rapids needs to get busy identifying where its funds will come from for the required local match as a way to improve the city's chances of securing federal funding.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, on Friday said Cedar Rapids may need to face the fact that it will need to raise significant funds in addition to any local match so it gets flood protection for both sides of the river.

“The reality of our situation in Cedar Rapids is, at some point in the future in order to build protection on both sides of the river, as a community we will be tested to see if we have the financial fortitude to raise a lot of our own funding in order make our comprehensive plan a reality,” Eyerly said.

In that regard, Corbett has proposed a sales-tax diversion plan, which would need approval from the Iowa Legislature and governor-elect Terry Branstad.

The diversion plan would divert money to Cedar Rapids from the growth in revenue coming from the state's sales tax collected in Linn County. With 1 percent annual growth in sales in Linn County, the incremental growth in the tax would raise about $400 million over 20 years, the city has estimated.

The sales-tax funds would be used to pay off bond debt so the project could be built within a few years.

State Rep. Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, is expected to be the Iowa House's new speaker, and this week, he said he will work with Corbett to get the sales-tax idea in the form of a legislative bill and see where it goes.

In one regard, the city of Cedar Rapids may be ahead of the Fargo-Moorhead area.

On Nov. 18, a delegation from the city of Cedar Rapids will appear in front of the Corps' Civil Works Review Board in Washington, D.C. The board will review the flood-protection plan for Cedar Rapids prepared by the Corps' Rock Island District office.

A similar presentation for the Fargo-Moorhead plan has been put off until next year while the Corps continues its study there, Shannon Bauer, public affairs officer at the Corps' office in St. Paul, Minn., said Friday.

On the other hand, Bauer noted that the Fargo and Moorhead communities have secured a special waiver for their preferred plan from Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works. Cedar Rapids has not secured such a waiver for its preferred plan.