Water treatment plant and city parks take the biggest blow
Healdsburg has a costly cleanup ahead after being clobbered with a fierce atmospheric river that caused flooding last week.
After the clouds cleared and the waters receded, the city of Healdsburg was left with preliminary flood damage estimated around $2 million, according to Healdsburg Police Lt. Matt Jenkins.
The city’s water treatment facility and parks bore the brunt of numerous damages such as downed plant pumps, trees and fences while homes and businesses largely remained unscathed after bulking up with sandbags.
While these are preliminary numbers subject to change upon a detailed assessment, damages to the water treatment facility are estimated to be at an excess of three-quarters of $1 million while park damages are estimated to be around $680,500.
After an emergency declaration was declared on Feb. 27, city council ratified the declaration in a 5-0 vote on March 4. The declaration allowed for emergency activity expenditures such as repairs. The declaration also allowed staff to immediately work with private businesses to repair flood damage as opposed to going through a request for proposal process.
The wastewater treatment facility took on three inches of standing water, subsequently damaging treatment motors and the five pumps, briefly halting wastewater treatment on Thursday and on Friday morning and stranded a city worker for a few hours.
Once roads were cleared city crews were able get into the facility and assess damages, which in addition to the downed pumps included damage to three other facility buildings.
“Three buildings at the Water Reclamation Facility were inundated with flood waters, damaging the interior of the buildings and items stored within. In addition, the facility’s pumps and motors, multiple electronic sensors, controllers and electrical panels were damaged,” said Terry Crowley, the city’s utility director.
To get the treatment plant up and running as soon as possible new motors were ordered and were expected to arrive Friday afternoon and be installed by crews Friday night, according to City Manager David Mickaelian.
While water contamination wasn’t a concern due to the facility’s holding ponds, Mickaelian said on Friday, the biggest concern was not completing the pump installation by that night. However, according to a city statement released at 5:18 p.m. on Friday, the treatment plant was restored to operation as of late Friday afternoon.
“Late Friday afternoon, the city was able to begin treatment of wastewater, albeit at a reduced capacity. By Saturday afternoon, the city was treating wastewater at a rate of roughly 2.5 million gallons per day. That’s roughly 60 percent of the plant’s capacity. While we have reached this milestone, repairs will continue through the next several weeks,” Crowley said.
According to the Friday press release while the treatment facility was being restored, city staff stored around 15 to 20 million gallons of wastewater in the on-site ponds with anticipation of treating the stored flow. While work was being done on the motors and pumps staff noticed that water in the ponds started seeping out the bottom and traveling underground to the basalt pond.
City crews estimate around 1 million gallons was lost via percolation over a two-day period.
Contamination continued to not be a concern since, “The storage ponds provide preliminary and primary treatment, removal of trash and large particles, to wastewater. The percolation through soils provides additional filtration. Because the flow in the Russian River was very high after the storm, we believe the seepage from the city’s pond has had little to no impact to river water,” according to the press release.
The city said they would continue to work with the Regional Water Quality Control Board to assess the situation.
Several parks including Railroad Park, Badger Park and Fitch Mountain Park Open Space Preserve were also severely impacted by the storm.
At Railroad Park on Front Street flood waters covered most of the park during the storm, taking out sections of fencing and retaining walls. The flood also left two to three inches of mud and muck throughout the park.
Flood Waters covered the entirety of Badger Park last week, taking out the play structure surfacing material and jumbling around items from the community garden. A one-inch layer of dark, milky mud was left throughout the trails and grounds.
Community services director Mark Themig said the park could open this week depending on conditions.
Fitch Mountain Park had the most damage, experiencing two major slides that completely blocked the trail and access road and three other minor slides in the area that uprooted trees and threw globs of mud around. According to the on-duty Healdsburg Fire Captain Mack Montanye, calls regarding down trees and slides did comprise the majority of calls for service on Feb. 27 and 28.
There was also a significant amount of erosion throughout the trail and road system. Consequently, the park will be closed until further notice.
Themig said the approximate estimate for the cost of damages to the parks is a ballpark figure since crews haven’t yet had time to conduct a more detailed assessment.
“It doesn’t include an engineer quote, it will likely be less or more,” Themig said.
In terms of covering the costs for water treatment and park repairs, Heather Ippoliti administrative services director for the admin/finance department, said funds will initially come from the funds that normally serve the treatment facility and the parks. They’re also working with Cal OES and FEMA to potentially get some of the work reimbursed.
Crowley said of the plant’s expenses, “As the city’s insurance has a deductible, some portion of the costs will likely be borne by the city. However, the city is working with local and state agencies to maximize and recovery funding.”
As of this writing another atmospheric river was on its way, slated to hit the area late March 6 into March 7. In preparation of the anticipated oncoming rains city spokeswoman Rhea Borja said city staff would monitor the weather and step up resources if need be.
Looking ahead to when the next flood hits, the city will be working on creating better maps that illustrate where the riskier, flood-prone areas of town are. The lack of such maps made anticipation difficult as rain poured down last week.
“We just don’t have good models on this,” Mickaelian said.
However, Mickaelian did acknowledge city staff’s efforts.
“When it hits the fan, literally, you have an amazing staff doing amazing work,” he said.
