State looking for expertise on flood risks
Contract includes analysis, guidance for 57 watersheds
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture will continue to assess flood risks to communities through a contract with an engineering firm that will complete sophisticated flood modeling and watershed analysis.
Historic flooding along the Arkansas River last spring caused millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure and nearby communities. But according to the Department of Agriculture, the proposed six-figure annual engineering contract is part of a plan that predates the 2019 flooding.
“The products include online flood risk maps, engineering models that can be used by local communities to assess the impact of development on flooding, and visual tools to better communicate flood risk to the general public,” Amy Lyman, a department spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Officials have pursued the work included in the contract in partnership with the federal government since 2011 and are required to periodically resubmit contracts, she said. The department previously worked with the engineering and environmental consulting firm FTN Associates, headquartered in Little Rock.
Findlay Edwards, an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, said the studies are carried out regularly throughout the country to understand water levels that can be expected during a 100- or 500-year storm.
He compared the movement of water in the floodplain in response to new development or construction to the act of lowering oneself into a full bathtub, causing the water to spill over the edge.
When development takes place in a floodplain, “the water will find another place for that volume, and often it makes it rise higher than anticipated and therefore flood other buildings that were built thinking the floodplain would be a lower level,” Edwards said by telephone Wednesday.
Floodplain maps can be incorporated into a plan for development in the floodplain to prepare for excess water and mitigate a historic flood event, he said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done this work for decades, he said.
As part of the contract, engineers will develop flood risk reports to cover the 57 watersheds in Arkansas identified by the U.S. Geological Survey. The firm will then deliver the reports to local communities, along with best practices on how to reduce the risk of flooding.
Lyman said the best practices may include regional detention or retention facilities, culvert replacement and channel improvements, and acquisition or replacement of repeatedly damaged structures.
However, there is no easy answer applicable to every community to mitigate the risk of flooding, Edwards said. It depends on the community’s geography and the amount of money available, he said.
Complicating the problem is that communities
often don’t collaborate with one another to plan for flooding. Flood risk analyses help people understand when the water is going to hit the stream, he said, and while most communities in Arkansas have a stormwater study that they have paid for, Edwards praised the state for moving to adopt an approach that is broader than a city-by-city basis.
“Which is great, because water doesn’t stay within the city lines,” Edwards said. “Water crosses political boundaries.”
The engineers may develop ideas for technical support or assistance available to communities in later phases of the project in order to decrease the long-term risk of flooding, according to the request for qualifications.
The request for qualifications — a precursor to negotiating and signing a contract — was published by the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Division on Feb. 16. The deadline for submissions is Friday.
The annual contract is eligible for renewal for up to seven years or until the project is completed, whichever comes first.
In addition to the flood risk analyses, the engineering firm will be tasked with creating an EPA watershed management plan and and distributing it to stakeholders in different watersheds.
According to EPA guidelines, these nine-element plans should identify the causes of pollutants in the watershed and the management measures required to reduce pollution in order to restore or maintain water quality.
Lyman estimated an annual budget of $300,000 to $500,000 for the contract, depending on available federal funding. She declined to make Bruce Holland, director of the Natural Resources Division, available for an interview.
Communities along the Arkansas River suffered extensive damage last year after heavy rainfall in Oklahoma to the west prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make the controversial decision to release millions of gallons of water down the river.