Coconino County gets $20 million to help with post-wildfire flooding projects
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — About 11,000 people travel on Highway 89 in a typical day as it connects Flagstaff to Utah, Colorado, the Hopi Reservation, and the Navajo Nation. However, it has been closed over a dozen times recently due to post-wildfire flooding.
The 2022 Pipeline Fire burned over 25,000 acres and destroyed dozens of homes.
Months later, monsoons would cause extreme post-wildfire flooding, bringing debris and rushing water into homes and onto Highway 89, causing it to close.
“We’ve heard stories about family members separated by the floods, kids in one side and parents on the other,” said Kate Morley, MetroPlan Executive Director. “That can be very stressful.”
Since the flooding, the county has been working on restoring watersheds, building retention basins, and installing giant pipes, all to withstand heavy forest runoff.
In total, the Coconino Flood Control District has invested $50 million into these projects. District 2 Supervisor Jeronimo Vasquez said he’s proud to see all this work get done in a short amount of time.
“When the Schultz Fire happened, it took three years just to get the first mitigation channels built,” Vasquez said. In two years, we’ve mitigated six out of nine water sheds, and by July, we’ll have those pipes in for one of the conveyances. We should have two other water sheds done, and that’s really gratifying.
The county also just received over $19.2 million more from the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Grant program. The county will also get a match of $3.7 million from the Arizona State Transportation Board and contribute $192,000 to this funding.
With the additional funds, $160 million has been invested into post-wildfire flood mitigation following the 2022 Pipeline Fire.
“Once again, we are shown the immense benefit that has come to Coconino County through our strong state and federal partnerships,” Vasquez said. “We owe gratitude to the support of our Congressional partners—Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, to Secretary Buttigieg, to MetroPlan, who helped develop this PROTECT project and grant application, and to all of the agencies that have contributed to our response and recovery in the face of devastating wildfire.”
This funding will help continue flood prevention work around Highway 89. The county’s goal is to have all these major flood prevention projects done this summer before monsoons.
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