The City of Cedar Rapids held its second open house for the River Corridor Redevelopment Plan on Thursday, Sept. 11, presenting potential flood control options developed by Stanley Consultants along with the Army Corps of Engineers. Twenty-two flood management tactics were evaluated for their effectiveness in flood reduction, cost, and amount of time required to implement them. The tactics ranged from large multi-billion dollar diversion channels to just increasing capacity of the river through dredging and flood storage at certain points. Even the unthinkable, removal of Mays Island, was examined – results showing it would only serve to reduce flooding by two percent. From the study results, three main strategies for future flood management were generated:

Option 1 – Tall, permanent flood walls and levees at the river’s edge with removable walls in downtown. (require 100 acres, cost up to $900 million)

Option 2 – Move option 1 flood protection a few blocks away from the river, except downtown where removable flood walls would be used right at the river edge. (require 250 acres, cost up to $1 billion)

Option 3 – Move flood protection even farther from the river using smaller levees and removable flood walls to create a large greenway along the river. (require 700 acres, cost up to $1.2 billion)

The city will meet with Sasaki Associates, the city’s consultant for river redevelopment and formerly chosen to design a pre-flood river walk, to come up with a final flood management plan by mid-October to submit to the Army Corps of Engineers and then go from there. It is likely the plan will take parts of all three options presented at the Thursday open house.

Grand Forks has been looked to as a precedent since the beginning of the flood, so many are imagining a similar post-flood greenway park and flood wall system for Cedar Rapids. Following the historic Grand Forks flood in 1997, it took almost ten years to implement their plan, but is now a major attraction for the city. Cedar Rapids’ flood protection system will play a huge role in the future of the city, but must also respect its past as extraordinary change is made over the next decade.

> River Corridor Redevelopment Plan – Open House No. 2 Presentation (PDF)
> Great Grand Forks Greenway website
> Greater Grand Forks Greenway – Wikipedia