The Coconino County Flood Control District and Flagstaff hosted a one-and-a-half-day Engineering Summit to brainstorm ideas to deal with the Museum Flood Area. Officials determined they need to complete forest restoration work in the Spruce Avenue Watershed, enhance alluvial fans for sediment reduction, implement channel stabilization, and potentially upsize the infrastructure throughout the city, all of which will be evaluated against a set of professional standards based upon the theory of “no adverse impacts.” The next phase of the work will be to complete a drainage master plan and conduct a study of the amount of sediment that is and will be produced out of the burned watershed. All projects must be technically, financially, legally, culturally, and environmentally feasible. Simultaneously the District and City must pursue federal, state, and local funding sources given the cost of flood mitigation will likely be in the tens of millions of dollars.
