Council takes steps toward flood-protection system

City leaders have said that a new flood-protection system that guards both sides of the Cedar River against future flooding is apt to come, step by step, not in one big leap.

Tuesday night, the City Council took two notable steps in that regard.

Firstly, the council agreed to seek $9 million in federal disaster grant funds from the Iowa Department of Economic Development to help build one piece of the city's new flood-protection system - a flood wall to protect Quaker Co. and the area between B Avenue NE and Cedar Lake.

The city's request of the state agency asks, if necessary, to let the city transfer a $9.085-million disaster grant already secured by the city to raise flood-prone Otis Road SE so the city can use those funds to help provided flood protection at and near the Quaker plant.

At the same time Tuesday night, the City Council committed $3.1 million in city funds over two budget years to pay the city's share of the $12.375-million cost for preconstruction engineering and design work on the Army Corps of Engineers' $100-million, no-frills plan to protect the east side of the Cedar River from future flooding. The engineering and design work, for which the Corps will pay 75 percent of the cost, should be complete in 2012.

City officials repeatedly have said they see the Corps' plan for the city as a first step in a more comprehensive flood-protection system that protects both sides of the river.

Dave Elgin, the city's public works director, said Tuesday that the Corps considers the Cedar Rapids project a priority and has federal funds in place to proceed with the engineering and design even without Congressional backing and funding to build the Corps' recommended flood-protection system. Moving ahead on the engineering and design hopefully will improve the Corps chances to secure funding for the construction of the Cedar Rapids project, Elgin noted.

Elgin pointed out that the city also has assembled funds to build a riverfront amphitheater on the west side of the river, a venue that also will become part of the city's flood-protection system on the west side of the river.

The move to protect Quaker Co., a vital industrial employer in the city just north of downtown Cedar Rapids, first came to light last month when the city and the Corps noted that Quaker had a plan to build its own flood wall rather than to wait for the federal government to decide if and when it would help build a flood-protection system in the city.

The city and the Corps then worked on an agreement in which the city would help find funds to contribute to the cost of a 2,500-foot-long flood wall at and near the Quaker plant north of downtown so that the flood wall was built to Corps standards and in accord with the Corps plans. The agreement is designed to allow the local contribution for this piece of the flood-protection system to count toward the requirement that the city come up with 35 percent of the cost of anything the Corps builds, the city's Elgin noted.

As for the city's wish to protect both sides of the river, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett has proposed that the state of Iowa divert to Cedar Rapids the growth in the state's sales-tax revenue collected in Linn County and Cedar Rapids for a number of years to provide the revenue so that the city can make sure the city's entire flood-protection system is built.