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<br />5 | Page <br />CWCB Feasibility Study – County Road 52 Improvements & Grading <br /> <br />Representatives of these entities met over a period of two years to consider ways to mitigate flood hazards <br />within the area that is tributary to Boxelder Creek from County Road 70 north of Wellington south to <br />where Boxelder Creek floodwaters join the Cache La Poudre River. It was determined that the best <br />approach to basin wide flood hazard mitigation would be to prepare a common plan for flood mitigation <br />improvements within the Basin. Members of the Alliance pooled funding to prepare a storm water <br />Master Plan for the Boxelder Basin. The resulting Boxelder Creek Regional Stormwater Master Plan <br />(Master Plan) was completed in October 2006. This Master Plan formed the basis for the formation of the <br />Boxelder Basin Regional Stormwater Authority (Authority). The Authority was formed by an <br />Intergovernmental Agreement in August of 2008 by its Member Entities; the City of Fort Collins, <br />Larimer County and The Town of Wellington. <br /> <br />The central purpose of the Authority was to develop and construct three regional drainage improvement <br />projects which are shown on Exhibit B. These projects were preliminarily identified in the 2006 Master <br />Plan as: <br /> <br />1. The Coal Creek Flood Mitigation Project <br /> <br />2. Edson Reservoir <br /> <br />3. The Middle Boxelder Improvements <br /> <br />The first of these improvement projects, the Coal Creek Flood Mitigation Project, has recently been <br />completed by the Authority in cooperation with Larimer County. The purpose of the project was to <br />protect close to 200 homes, dozens of businesses, and two schools that were within the Coal Creek <br />floodplain in the Town of Wellington. This $5.1M project diverts stormwater flows from Coal Creek <br />(which is tributary to Boxelder Creek) into the Clark Reservoir Inlet Canal and ultimately into Clark <br />Reservoir. North Poudre Irrigation Company (NPIC) owns these facilities, which are north of the Town <br />of Wellington. The Inlet Canal was enlarged to accommodate the 1,700 cfs from Coal Creek, Clark <br />Reservoir was dredged and the emergency spillway was raised to accommodate the decreed storage of <br />NPIC along with the diverted Coal Creek flows. During construction, 186,000 cubic yards of sediment <br />was removed from Clark Reservoir. The dredging combined with raising the emergency spillway <br />provides the 540 acre-feet of flood storage along with the 871 acre-feet of decreed storage for NPIC. <br />Funding for this project came from a FEMA Pre -Disaster Mitigation Grant (PDM), matching funds and <br />Authority Service Fees. <br /> <br />The second improvement project identified in the Master Plan was originally called Edson Reservoir. <br />This dry stormwater detention reservoir was only preliminarily sized (660 to 990 ac -ft.) and sited (see <br />Exhibit B) in the Master Plan. A detailed Siting Study was completed by Ayres Associates (May 2010) to <br />determine the most advantageous location for Edson taking into account flood reduction, cost and <br />constructability issues. This Study is summarized in the previous Feasibility Study for what is now <br />referred to as the East Side Detention Facility (ESDF) and explains the ultimate siting of ESDF. <br /> <br />The third of the projects, the Middle Basin Improvements, went through a metamorphosis as well. <br />Originally identified in the Master Plan as principally two storm drainage channels and a siphon structure <br />at the crossing of Boxelder Creek and the Larimer and Weld Canal, the improvements were reduced in <br />scope and refined in design. Most of this change in the scope of the improvements had to do with the <br />eventual size and location of the ESDF, which will greatly reduce the Boxelder 100 -year flows where <br />they cross the Larimer and Weld Canal. As a result, these improvements have now been reduced to a <br />single side-flow spillway structure known as the Larimer and Weld Canal Crossing Structure (LWCCS) <br />at the crossing of Boxelder Creek and the Larimer and Weld Canal.