 - More than three years after approving an impact study for a proposed flood mitigation project in town, the Lander City Council is still waiting to receive project designs from the Army Corps of Engineers.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – More than three years after approving an impact study for a proposed flood mitigation project in town, the Lander City Council is still waiting to receive project designs from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“We were supposed to already have 60 percent designs, and we do not yet,” Assistant Mayor Rajean Strube Fossen said during a council meeting Tuesday. “And we have no control over the Corps’ schedule. That’s been our problem for the last three years. … They’ve given us a schedule that (is) a moving target.”
The city is “relying” on Army Corps funding from Section 205 of the 1948 Flood Control Act to complete the project, Strube Fossen noted.
That federal funding would cover 60 percent of the total project, she said – but it is capped at $10 million, and while the flood mitigation plan was initially estimated to cost about $8.25 million in 2017, the updated projection is probably “at least double that now.”
“We’re trying to get additional funding for that,” Strube Fossen said.
Limited influence
Councilmember Melinda Cox asked whether there was any way for the city to intervene in the process instead of “just waiting” for the Army Corps to send design documents.
“I feel like we need to take a little bit more control, (because) we can’t wait for construction costs to be $400 million,” Cox said. “Where is our responsibility to our community to come up with a plan … instead of waiting for this? (It) could be years. And as we wait, costs go up and go up and go up.”
Strube Fossen said the city has already tried requesting an audit of the Section 205 flood mitigation project in Lander to “see what the holdup is and get that ball rolling,” but that effort “was unsuccessful.”
The city also initiated the Middle Fork Popo Agie Flood Control and Restoration Project this year, Strube Fossen said, “because the Corps of Engineers and the feds were clearly not going to play that game” – but regardless, she agreed that “we’re going forward at the snail’s pace.”
Mayor Missy White added that Strube Fossen has sent multiple messages to federal contacts, “gently but firmly pointing out that costs have escalated (as) we’ve waited for the Army Corps of Engineers.”
“It’s unfortunate and frustrating, (but) that’s kind of the limit of where we can influence things,” White said. “The Corps has ultimate control over it.”
There is one option the city hasn’t tried, Strube Fossen said: terminating the project partnership agreement with the Corps of Engineers.
That route would leave the city without the Section 205 funding from the federal government, she noted, but “if the council decides that it could be less expensive through a private route … without that $10 million, (that is) a decision you could make.”
For more information, call the City of Lander at (307) 332-2870.