Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CENTERVILLE — There's a week or maybe two weeks' worth of work left on the construction of a debris basin high on Centerville's east bench.
When it's done, it will be one of many new improvements made to the city's infrastructure since the floods of 1983 that are part of an aggressive Davis County flood control effort.
Completion of the basin will allow the city to remove, with the federal government's approval, another 160 homes from the flood plain designation. All told, 95 percent of the city's homes and businesses will be outside that designation, said Randy Randall, Centerville's public works director.
"The only parts that will be in the flood plain will be the stream channels themselves — almost all of our structures will not be in the floodway."
We've been sharp in seeing things out there that need to be fixed. We ended up with a good addition to our system.
–Randy Randall
Randall is a veteran of the 1983 floods, experiencing the damage first hand working for the city nearly 28 years ago when water washed out roads, leaving gaping holes 7 feet deep. He recalls torrents of water that washed out of the mountains sand and dirt that had to be hauled out of a city park — thousands upon thousands of yards of dirt conveyed in more than 500 truckloads.
Shortly afterward, Davis County assumed the mantle of the government flood control authority, passing a sales tax increase that fueled a bevy of replacements and repairs carried out in multiple cities.
A $28 million bond paid for the replacement of infrastructure such as bigger culverts, or boxed culverts, and pipes with larger carrying capacity.
When a new northbound lane is added to I-15 through Centerville, the pipe will be replaced there. The freeway serves as a dam and is among the city's vulnerable spots for flooding, but Randall said it's not as if the city can dictate when the road is torn up so the improvements can be made.
In this case, the state Department of Transportation agreed to the fix, and is paying for most of it, Randall said.
"We've been sharp in seeing things out there that need to be fixed," Randall said, adding that when the new tracks were put in along the Union Pacific line for FrontRunner, the city pushed for putting in larger drainage pipes under the tracks.
"We ended up with a good addition to our system."
The city also aggressively pursues grants that can help ease the cost of such projects. In the late 1990s, it applied for and was the first city in Utah to receive a Project Impact grant. Offered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the grants are designed to help foster disaster-resistant communities. The city used the money to construct a debris basin, get a SNOTEL snow measurement site and install a larger culvert as part of its storm drain system.
Similar improvements have been made by Centerville's neighbor to the south, Bountiful, where city engineer/public works director Paul Rowland said debris basins were put in at the city's three major canyons where the main trio of creeks flow.
"They are not insignificant debris basins — we're talking 125 feet tall," Rowland said.
Those basins are designed to prevent debris or mud flows such as the one the city experienced on Stone Creek in 1983. The city also installed sediment traps to prevent the pooling of dirt and sand where the water flows more slowly in the concrete channels on flatter surfaces.
Those improvements, Rowland said, will allow much more water to flow through the city than what came down in 1983. A more significant threat is having a really high flow of water wash out any the vegetation such as trees that have grown along the channels in the 28 years since the floods.
He said city work crews are monitoring the channels at least twice daily to check for any debris, keeping vigilant over possible clogs along the way.
The storm drain system, like in Centerville, also received a major overhaul to prevent damming in the culverts underneath the roads. Where there were once pipes that were 48 inches in diameter there are now box culverts as large as 10 feet wide and 6 feet tall, Rowland said.
Those improvements have paid off.
In 1984, the city's major creeks had higher flows than the year before.
"We were able to get through it without any problem."
Email:aodonoghue@ksl.com
