Zoning, NRD officials eye watershed improvements north of Beatrice

BEATRICE – Gage County has updated flood plain areas within its zoning rules. The county planning administrator has been working with J-E-O Consulting firm and the Lower Big Blue Natural Resources District.  The focus has been on the Little Indian Creek watershed area, north of Beatrice.
J-E-O Civil Engineer Jake Miriovsky says the Nebraska Resources Conservation Service has been funding a project in the watershed coinciding with the need to address hazard mitigation.

"A lot of people don't realize the risk associated with dams. They're designed well, but there is a small possibility that if they fill up to the top and they were to breach, they would basically wash out a stretch of ground downstream from the dam."

Some areas are currently not included in Federal Emergency Management Agency flood plain maps….and Miriovsky says efforts are being made to identify such areas and overlaying them on the FEMA maps.

"So that both the FEMA and the breach areas are protected from development of residences or places of businesses...areas that would be very costly from both a property and potentially a loss of life standpoint if a dam were to breach."

There are 25 dams in the Little Indian Creek watershed area north of Beatrice, and Miriovsky says there is a long-term project of replacing dams that were constructed in the mid-1960s….mostly where they are located now.  "Not a lot is changing, but these small changes in the regs allow us to build those structures to a low-hazard criteria, as opposed to high hazard. It saves the NRD and taxpayers a lot of money...building to low-hazard criteria."

Gage County Supervisor Terry Jurgens of Odell says the work to build the dams in the first place, was critical.  "There were a lot of structures built in the 60s and early 70s...and then basically that was it...it was over. But, I can't tell you the importance of those dams that were put in....and it makes sense every place they were put. I think that should continue."

Some dams would be relocated and there would be two new structures. Most of the work would involve repairing spillways and removing built-up sediment. The overall work is expensive, but federal funding is covering the project through the local NRD from an NRCS funding program.  The watershed dams serve to reduce the flow rate of water into rivers during times of heavy rain or flooding.