Wayne's Daily Updates: Monday July 26, 2021 Update

Happy Monday morning. Well, Pioneer Day came and went in an amazing way in Provo. We had great crowds at our event in Kiwanis Park on Saturday, and at events at the Pioneer Village in North Park. And we had lots of fireworks over the weekend, especially Saturday night, and lots of our residents using our city parks for neighborhood fireworks experiences. Kudos to the Provo team for all their hard work at making it a fun and safe weekend for all of Provo!

UPCOMING CITY EVENTS

Learn It: Activism for Busy People I July 27 7:00 pm

Book Trivia Night I July 28 7:00 pm
Movie in the Courtyard: Wonder Woman 1984 I July 30 9:30 pm
The Diaries of Adam and Eve I July 29 - August 21
Paint Night I August 3 7:00 pm
Recipe Swap: Breakfast I August 4 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Intro to Studio Production I August 4 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Cool Science: Ice Cream Demonstration I August 10 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Learn It: Canning 101 I August 10 7:00 - 8:30 pm

Crochet Club: Crochet Basics I August 12 6:30 - 7:00 pm

Crochet Club: Bags I August 12 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Rock The Canyon I August 28 4:00 pm - 8:00pm
Blue Skies Concert Series I Wednesdays through September 22
Teen Film Contest Screening and Awards Ceremony I July 29 7:00pm

NEWS YOU CAN USE

The unrest in South Africa has made global news as South Africans attempt to rally and protect property as violence rages. The damages look devastating.
Tokyo has entered a new state of emergency as the Olympics continue. No audience is permitted to be in attendance due to the state of emergency.
Love tacos? Want to get paid to eat, talk about, and post about tacos? McCormick might have a job for you! They are hiring a "Director of Taco Relations". Yes, really.
A fire over the weekend in a Spanish Fork barn is under investigation.
Two friends decided to visit every city in Utah. It took them 2 years to complete their journey.

YOUR VOICE

Results from last week's commuting poll. No big surprises here, but thought it might be interesting for you to see.

Just a reminder to share info that you would like us to highlight. Go to the "Your Voice" section in the area to the right of the post, and enter your ideas. Then upload some photos with this link. Babies, weddings, and other fun stuff are welcome!

UPLOAD PICTURES HERE!

PROVO SOCIAL MEDIA

HOT-BUTTON ITEMS IN PROVO

Provo River and Utah Lake Levees

Last week, our public works team made a presentation to the Municipal Council on an issue that ahs largely been beneath the public’s radar for several years but which is rapidly becoming a looming issue in Provo. I wanted to give a little background and offer a few thoughts about it.

In aftermath of the devastating floods which occurred in Utah back in 1983, the US Army Corps of Engineers came to Provo (and other Utah cities) and built levees along the Provo River west of I-15 and along the edge of Utah Lake to protect from future serious flooding. These levees after construction became the property and responsibility of Provo City to maintain. For nearly 40 years now, the City has maintained the levees and the river channel to protect the work done by the Corps.

Additional improvements were made upstream along the Provo River including the construction of Deer Creek and Jordanelle Reservoirs which allowed much greater management of flows in the river channel. The City has also required all new construction west of I-15 to be built at a level above the floodplain level to protect that new construction from serious flood damage. For the most part, these requirements, levees, and reservoirs have made a substantial difference in the level of flood risk in this part of Provo.

Several years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other events which led to significant flooding in the eastern part of the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency developed new and more stringent standards for the construction of federally funded levees. FEMA has now applied those standards to existing levees across the county and determined that levees not meeting those standards cannot be defined as levees, regardless of how well they function and have functioned.

FEMA is currently in the process of adjusting the maps that determine properties which are subject to flooding and that need to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. Because Provo’s river and lake levees were not constructed to the new standards, FEMA has determined that the levees cannot be used as flood protection, and preliminary data has led to a pending requirement that the vast majority of properties in the southwest part of the city will be subject to the national flood insurance program.

Since these preliminary findings were shared with the City, we began working on a variety of potential solutions that might mitigate these requirements. We, along with other cities with similar concerns, worked with Congress over the years to provide some exemption from these requirements in cases like ours where flood protection had been maintained long term. We asked FEMA and the State of Utah to study the impact of the reservoirs and on Utah Lake on flooding in order to get credit for the work that had been done. Due to technicalities, neither of these approaches seemed to make a difference.

After all of that effort, we commissioned an independent study to assess the levees to determine what other options the City has. These options – including continuing to stay the course of protecting against flooding and having the feds require many of our residents purchase flood insurance – to modifying the levees or to building a new levee system – were presented to the Council last week. We have more work to do on design and cost estimates, but the impacts are staggering in terms of cost and the need to acquire property.

We will continue to work on alternatives and present more detailed plans to the Council and the community, and I’m sure you will be hearing lots more about this over the next few months.