Paying for Flood Protection - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Paying for Flood Protection

A timeline for building the Mouse River Enhanced Flood Protection project is being explained to city council members this week.

Engineers working on the project laid out the costs and potential construction

schedule for the city finance committee Tuesday and the public works committee today.

It calls for construction to begin late next year, and continue through the year 2025.

But that schedule relies on consistent funding for each year beginning in 2014 and continuing through 2025.

It requires 530 million dollars over that period.

Ryan Ackerman of Ackerman-Estvold Engineering told members of the finance committee that funding may well prove to be the biggest hurdle to building the flood protection system.

(Ryan Ackerman, Ackerman-Estvold Engineering) "A part of the value in the document prepared for this presentation is that it starts to give an understanding of anticipated cash flows per year. It can also feed into potential requests from outside entities for support, whether it's federal, state, etcetera."

(Mark Jantzer, Minot Alderman) "We're faced with a substantial demand for funding this protection as we go forward into these out years so I think that is important for all of us to contemplate."

Council member Bob Miller said the city needs to pursue all funding sources to get the flood protection plan implemented regardless of what river management changes or structural changes might be made along the Mouse River. He said the city needs to protect itself against the river.