Nebraska has nearly 80,000 miles of rivers and some of the most extreme, unpredictable weather in the nation. That combination makes flood prevention and mitigation tremendously important to protect homes, businesses, and infrastructure. The flood disaster of March 2019 had a disruptive effect on many of Nebraska’s waterways, rerouting entire river channels and creating new flood risks. The Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED) is investing federal Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to support local efforts to mitigate these risks through the Infrastructure Match Program.
“Smart management of our state’s water is essential to our ag economy,” said Gov. Pillen. “Being vigilant of our water resources also allows us to reduce the risk of disastrous flooding. Thank you to DED for investing in proactive projects to protect Nebraskans from floods.”
Perhaps nowhere is the responsibility to mitigate flooding greater than in Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District (Papio NRD). The district includes many of Nebraska’s fastest-growing communities, such as Elkhorn, Gretna, Papillion, and Valley.
John Winkler, general manager of Papio NRD, grew up in the area and has 18 years of experience with the NRD. He’s continually surprised to see new subdivisions popping up in the region. They’re visible reminders of the urgency of flood mitigation measures.
“In our area, development keeps going constantly; it’s almost impossible to stay ahead of it,” he said. “When we used to build a reservoir, we were acquiring property from farmers and doing the work in open fields. Now, we’re building reservoirs in the middle of neighborhoods.”
While creating reservoirs to safeguard new subdivisions, Winkler and his team remain watchful of flood risks throughout Papio NRD. They recently identified a trouble spot near La Platte. The historic floods of 2019, and subsequent heavy rainfalls, deposited sand in the Platte River near two railroad bridges and the Highway 75 bridge. Whereas sandbars typically erode over time, this one has locked in and continues to grow. It now takes up two-thirds of the channel.
“We ran hydraulic models and found that even a 25-year rain event would cause everything behind that obstruction, or to its west, to react like it was a 100-year rain event,” Winkler explained. “While the sandbar seems insignificant, it’s causing the river to behave differently than it normally would.”
In addition to elevating water levels after heavy rains, the sandbar could also obstruct ice floating down the river. “That was a big concern this year since the channel is so constricted,” said Winkler. “If we had a big ice flush, the sandbar would be a perfect place for it to get hung up. Our options would then be limited to break up the ice because you can’t use explosives in the area due to the bridges.” In Winkler’s judgment, an ice jam at that point of the river could result in a big mess reaching all the way back to Cedar Creek and Louisville. “We were lucky this year; the ice flushed evenly with no problem. But we don’t want to test our luck near year.”
Spotting a problem is one thing, but solving it is another task altogether. In this case, digging out the sandbar—to return the river to its usual flow—is a multimillion dollar undertaking. That’s an amount Papio NRD does not have available on its own. Thankfully, DED has been able to grant $7.15 million through the Infrastructure Match Program to help fund the sandbar removal.
“The funds we access through DED are for projects that we don’t have the resources to do,” Winkler said. “There’s no way we could handle the cost of the project locally. We don’t want anyone else to come in and do this for us; we just need a force multiplier so that we can make it happen. ”
Winkler said his team hopes to issue an RFP in September so that the sandbar can be removed prior to ice season in early 2025. Papio NRD is working with Cass County, Sarpy County, railroad companies, the Nebraska Department of Transportation, Lower Platte South NRD and others to ensure the project moves forward expeditiously. Additionally, he said DED’s assistance has been a great help in taking on the project. “Tia (Tia Loftin, DED’s Infrastructure Program Manager) has done a phenomenal job of helping us work through the grant process. There’s no way we could have done it without her expertise.”
Winkler takes pride in Papio NRD’s work to guard against flooding—work that often goes largely unnoticed. “After heavy rains, I’ll hear people say, ‘Oh, we got lucky,’ when there’s no flooding. That’s not luck. We’ve been working for 50 years to build mitigation structures. What we’ve done has worked and continues to work.”