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" '& MEMORANDUM COLORADO WATER CONSER V AnoN BOARD DARIES C. LILE DIRECTOR DATE: January 13, 1998 TO: Peter Evans Larry Lang FROM: Tom Browning RE: Flood Issues on the Lower Elk River Subiect The Regulatory Branch of the Corps of Engineers (Grand Junction Office) sent a recent letter, dated January 6, 1998, to the Lower Elk River Flood Association. The purpose of the letter was to respond to the CWCB's flood investigations and mitigation recommendations related to the June 1997 flood event on the Elk River located west of Steamboat Springs in unincorporated Routt County. The Corps transmitted copies of the letter to 14 entities, including the CWCB, Backl!:round There was a significant runoff event on the Elk River in June of 1997 that necessitated some evacuations and caused damages to public and private property to the north of State Highway 40, As a result of the flood, the affected landowners created a local flood association and requested technical assistance from the CWCB to identify possible solutions to the flooding problems. Larry agreed to assist the flood association to the extent possible. I have been working with Larry on the project and have performed a number of technical investigations in support of the flood assessment. A number of interested parties have been involved with this issue including local landowners, the Lower Elk River Flood Association, Routt County officials, Colorado State Representative Jack Taylor, the Colorado Department of Transportation, and others, Technical Issues The CWCB and the USGS (Bob Jarrett and Mark Smith) performed field investigations to document the characteristics of the June 1997 flood event. Preliminary results from the USGS indicated that the gaging station on the lower Elk River did not accurately record the peak flow due to the high stage and unrecorded flows in the overbanks of the river. The USGS suggested that the event was the flood of record for the Elk River, although their analysis has not been finalized or released to the public. The CWCB concurred that the event was very significant. The CWCB then completed a brief flood report based on field observations, information from Routt County staff, and preliminary analyses from the USGS. In addition to the flood documentation efforts, the CWCB prepared a brief report in order to outline both short-term and long-term mitigation recommendations that could be implemented in the study area, The short-term measures included work that could be done by CDOT within the CDOT right-of-way on Highway 40, and the long-term recommendation was to perform a