The Times-Independent

County plans floodwater mitigation projects

Five areas along Pack Creek targeted


After heavy post-fire floods damaged several properties and roads last summer, Grand County is preparing to improve the Stocks Drive crossing over Pack Creek, among other infrastructure work, in preparation for future flooding.

Stocks Drive remains closed after last summer’s heavy post-fire floods overwhelmed the Pack Creek culvert. Photo by Sophia Fisher

In addition to improvements on the Stocks Drive crossing, four areas of Pack Creek will likely receive bank stabilization. Though the project’s estimated cost tallies to about $530,000, roughly $410,000 of this will likely be covered by a federal grant.

While engineering details remain to be worked out, the county expects to complete the improvements this year, according to an email from Grand County Strategic Development Director Chris Baird.

Stocks Drive, which will receive the most work, has remained closed since a flash flood in July overwhelmed its debris-clogged culvert over Pack Creek and heavily damaged the road.

In addition to Stocks Drive, the floodwater work will potentially target bank stabilization along Pack Creek. Crews will stabilize banks both up- and downstream from the creek’s intersections with the following locations: Spanish Valley Drive, Spanish Trail Road, Kerby Lane and Old City Park, according to Grand County Road Department Supervisor Bill Jackson.

Both Jackson and Grand County Building Official Bill Hulse emphasized that the plans are still preliminary, and will ultimately depend on the findings of an ongoing assessment by the National Resources Conservation Service.

For example, while only Stocks Drive right now is expected to receive a new crossing, Hulse said other crossings could also be targeted if the assessment finds them unsafe or unstable.

In addition to these crossing and bank improvements, the county has constructed a temporary flood-control berm near Stocks Drive south of the Beeman subdivision, on land owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.

The berm, which is currently permitted for about four years, aims to divert overflow from Stocks Drive back into the floodway channel.

Finally, the county hopes to accomplish a second project this year that addresses not floodwaters, but regular stormwater, along Jackson Street.

This project, first outlined in the county’s 2011 Storm Drainage Master Plan, outlined an initial, completed phase that involved the construction of a detention pond, an outlet structure and an emergency channel.

In the project’s second, $2.7 million phase, the county will construct a culvert from the detention pond down under Highway 191 and into Pack Creek, should a “100-year storm” hit and cause the pond to overflow.

Given high material and labor costs, Baird said the county might not complete both the Pack Creek and Jackson Street projects this year unless they receive either a grant or a low-interest loan, the latter of which is most likely.

Even if the county must bond for the projects, neither will require a property-tax increase or a user-fee increase, Baird reported.

Baird added that following the Pack Creek and Jackson Street projects this year, the county plans to initiate stormwater improvements to Boulder Avenue — building infrastructure similar to that along Jackson Street, which Boulder parallels.

These projects were listed as priorities in the decade-old stormwater plan, which recommended $39 million in stormwater improvements that the county has slowly whittled down.