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Sen. John Hoeven urges starting now to talk about future Souris River flood protection phases

Senator urges talks start now on future flood protection phases

Jill Schram/MDN Sen. John Hoeven speaks to Mayor Shaun Sipma, left, as City Manager Tom Barry and Ryan Ackerman, administrator of the Souris River Joint Board, listen at right, in Minot Thursday.

The time is now to plan for funding future phases of the Mouse River Enhanced Flood Protection Project, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told local officials in Minot Thursday.

Hoeven toured the work being done on the first three phases of the project and examined the area where the next phases of work will begin.

Hoeven said he has been talking with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about Phase 4 and with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad about Phase 5.

Work needs to be done to establish a higher positive benefit to cost ratio for flood protection, Hoeven said. The Office of Management and Budget supports consideration of project funding when the ratio of benefit is at least two and a half times the cost, he said.

“One of the ideas that I think we have to look at is this Phase 4 links the first three phases together,” Hoeven said. “There ought to be some benefit to that in the benefit-cost calculation.

“We need to start working on the Corps with this,” he added. “A we have Corps people coming out here, we need to be getting them on board with some kind of strategy so we can actually get funded. We don’t just want to get it approved. We want to get it funded.”

Hoeven voiced optimism that funding will be possible.

“We have to be working on that. It’s not too soon to start that,” he said.

Regarding Phase 5, Hoeven said BNSF is looking at the engineering and construction costs that would be involved in raising its tracks. The railroad’s agreement to pay for the rail raise and allow flood project tiebacks on its property would enable the project’s route to take that path rather than impact a residential area, requiring the buyout of 31 homes. Agreement also would be needed from the railroad regarding a closure structure, which would shut down tracks during a flood event.

“They are not committed to this yet. It’s what we are working toward. They would cover those costs and we would not have the home buyout costs. Of course, what we end up with then is the cost of raising the Third Street overpass,” Hoeven said. “I am already looking at funding to do that.”

There also was talk at the meeting with Hoeven about moving quickly due to new flood plain maps being developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Revised FEMA maps are expected for review in May. During the summer, FEMA could adopt the maps and open a 90-day appeal period, said Lance Meyer, city engineer.

Mayor Shaun Sipma said the city is hopeful FEMA will consider a proposal to lower the flood stage flow rate from 10,000 cubic feet per second to 8,000 cfs, which would remove a number of homes from the flood plain.

Hoeven also expects a Chief’s Report from the Corps’ study of the flood protection project in a month or so. It is a first step toward getting the Maple Diversion eligible for federal funding. However, the project still would have to be authorized by Congress and then included in a funding bill, he said. The project failed to make it into a water funding bill late last year because the Corps was still completing the Chief’s Report.

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