The federal government is sending Dubuque nearly eight million dollars to revamp a key portion of its flood protection system. Dubuque engineer, Deron Muehring says the money will help complete a key part of the Bee Branch Watershed Flood Mitigation Project.
“It’s going to help replace a facility that’s, over 50 years old, really update it, expanded its capabilities, really help better protect a large swath of our community from flooding,” he says. The watershed project is designed to take runoff during a rainfall and funnel it to this pumping area.
“When of the river, Mississippi is up and we’re in flood conditions, and our floodwall levee system is in operation, then if it rains in the city of Duqubue, then this system helps drain kind of the interior side of the levee,” Muehring says.
He says they were fortunate there weren’t any really significant rains this spring during Mississippi River flooding, and they didn’t have to use the system. The city has had six flood events which drew Presidential disaster declarations since 1999, making it important to keep the system working. “The project to construct and then engineering during construction is about a 26 million dollar project,” he says. “So the seven-point-seven million dollars will bring that cost down, so the city’s share will still be about 19 million dollars to see that through to through to completion.”
The grant is from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, and won funding in part because of its economic impact on several large businesses. “This facility will help, you know, prevent flooding of manufacturing facilities, along our Kerper Boulevard , it’s along along the river there. So it’s going to help existing facilities to maintain their businesses and allow them to expand,” he says.
It is projected the project could lead to more than $16 million in private investment in that area and the creation of 150 jobs.