Winslow Levee Funding Sought

By Tammy Gray-Searles
   “This is not a situation where we can take a business as usual approach,” Colonel Thomas Magness of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told Navajo County and City of Winslow officials Sept. 9 as they met to discuss the Winslow levee.
   Magness informed the group that the bad news is that funding for work on the levee is not currently included in the President’s budget, but the good news is that there are still ways it could be included.
   “We do need to talk about, if there’s a problem with the funding how we can keep this going,” Magness remarked.
   A $500,000 appropriation to help complete the ongoing feasibility study has been included in a con-gressional budget, which is separate from the President’s budget. Representative Ann Kirkpatrick included the appropriation and, according to her staff member Virginia Turner, who attended the meeting at the levee, has sought support from Senator Jon Kyl. Turner explained that the funding has passed through the appropriation process in the House, but she is not sure how far it has gotten in the Senate.
   County Supervisor J.R. DeSpain noted that Winslow residents need to contact their legislators and let them know the importance of the funding.
   “They need to tell their personal stories of how the cost of flood insurance has affected them,” DeSpain said.
   Magness noted that last year the corps was authorized to spend approximately $229,000 on the feasibil-ity study, and if that rate of funding continued, it would take 10 years to complete.
   “We need to work at it from every angle,” he remarked regarding obtaining funding.
   The corps is completing the feasibility study, which must be done before reconstruction of the levee can begin, on a 50-50 cost share basis with the county. Navajo County Floodplain Administrator Trent Larson explained that the county has funds set aside for the project, but is in a “cost-share lock” until the corps is authorized to spend more money.
   “We can’t spend more money than what they can contribute,” he said.
   Larson also noted that part of the county’s cost match can be through in-kind services.
   Magness told the group that the corps has the physical capability to do approximately $750,000 worth of work on the feasibility study over the next fiscal year, and he is hopeful that somehow that amount of funding can be obtained.
   Although funding is short and the full project is expected to take at least eight to 10 years to complete, Magness noted that a lot has been accomplished over the last 18 months. He explained that authorization for corps involvement, as well as some funding, a reconnaissance study and the first stages of the feasibility study have all been completed in that time.
   “For the federal government, that’s light speed,” he remarked. “There’s a lot of momentum on this pro-ject.”
   Magness addressed some practical concerns with the officials, such as the location and number of sand-bags available in case of emergency, and water level and speed trigger points for emergency response. He also offered to have his staff review the county’s emergency plan for the levee.
   The colonel agreed to keep moving the project forward and to look for alternative funding sources to help avoid any delays. He also noted that residents should understand that the process, even moving as quickly as possible, will take many years.
   “We’re engineers, we have to plan, but we want to get out here and build something. We need to move through this as fast as we can,” he said, adding, “We do need the citizens to understand that this is a real threat. Don’t assume anything about this levee. We’ve got a long way to go. It will take eight to 10 years to fix it, and people ought to understand that for the next eight to 10 years there is a risk.”