Home on the watershed

 No comments  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

By ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star

Go north on 27th Street between Cornhusker Highway and Superior Street and you’ll drive through part of Lincoln’s largest watershed.

Sixty percent of the city’s flood plain footprint is in the Salt Creek watershed, Public Works and Utilities Department officials say.

Still, businesses and houses have sprouted along its edges like weeds, especially along 27th Street, and it’s tough to tell where flood plain boundaries begin and end.

Traditional flood plains are open spaces with little or no development to allow floodwater to flow freely. That was once true of Salt Creek, but development has blurred boundaries and lowered the protection of the flood plain.

To preserve the 100-year flood plain, as called for by Federal Emergency Management Agency regulatory standards, city and Lower Platte South Natural Resources District officials are re-mapping the area.

Four other watersheds in the city have undergone the same process: Beal Slough, Southeast Upper Salt Creek, Stevens Creek and Cardwell Branch. Work on Dead Man’s Run is under way.

Nicole Fleck-Tooze, special projects administrator for Public Works and Utilities, said large areas along North 27th Street have been in the flood plain all along, but the boundaries are based on outdated information. City and NRD officials are using the latest technology to identify what is in the flood plain.

 “We’re not putting people in the flood plain. We are identifying where the flood plain is,” she said.

When the new boundaries are redrawn, some business owners and residents who were outside the flood plain years ago may find themselves in it. The city has no requirement for flood insurance, but people who use federal financing may be required to buy it.

Ryan Brehm of Lincoln bought a home near 14th and New Hampshire streets about three years ago and recently found out it’s within the new 100-year flood plain.

“I’m just concerned about whether I have to buy flood insurance or not,” he said after attending a recent open house on the project.

 Brehm said his house was built   100 years ago and to his knowledge has never been flooded.

Project manager Ben Higgins said the next step is approval of new Salt Creek flood plain maps by the Planning Commission and City Council. Then the maps will go to FEMA with maps from the other watersheds for final approval.

Total cost of the project, which covers 30 miles, is about $570,000.

Fleck-Tooze said people who find themselves in the flood plain could save money by buying flood insurance before FEMA makes a decision in 2008.

One of the key tools in managing the 100-year flood plain is a companion ordinance that limits the amount of fill dirt that can be placed in flood-storage areas. Twenty such areas along the levee system between Calvert and Superior streets serve as places for water to go if Salt Creek overflows its banks.