From the Longmont Times-Call (John Fryar) via the Loveland Reporter-Herald:
While it could cost as much as $14 million to remove debris from public and privately owned properties and stabilize stream banks to reduce spring and summer flooding risks, the county has only about $3.5 million in its 2014 budget, officials said Tuesday.
“The bottom line is, we need a bunch of money in order to accomplish this mitigation,” Sheriff Joe Pelle told Boulder County commissioners. “We need that funding and we need it badly.”
The commissioners and their staff have been striving to get financial help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other sources.
Boulder County is “obviously trying to shake the tree for all possible sources of funding,” said Commissioner Elise Jones…
The ground near the streams is saturated and likely to remain so through 2015, reducing its ability to absorb some of the water from the streams, [Mike Chard] said. The mountain snowpack is at about 150 percent of normal, with March and April — typically the snowiest months — still ahead, he added. The region’s reservoirs are at capacity and will spill over their dams earlier than usual this year, causing higher stream flow during spring runoff and thunderstorms, he said. The floods left behind deposits of sand, gravel, trees and brush that could create mini-dams and cause flooding behind them during spring runoffs or even during heavy thunderstorms; further damage could occur downstream, as well, when those mini-dams burst. In some locations, the floods also eroded and weakened creek and river banks.
Officials are now prioritizing which streams to target with whatever money turns out to be available.
Boulder County has assigned “threat levels” to 208 sites it’s identified as flood risks. Level 1 locations, about 90 of the total, are those with a high risk unless work is done on them. Level 4 sites can await further evaluation after the spring runoff.
The county assessments have found 43 locations where bank stabilization is needed; 94 where debris removal would reduce risks; and three where berms should be built to hold back water.
Spring runoff is about 30 to 60 days away, Chard noted.
More South Platte River Basin coverage here.