Sedgwick County commissioners agreed Wednesday to kick in $4 million toward the cost of repairing the Big Ditch, which provides flood protection for much of the area.
About $10 million in repairs need to be made so the levees can be certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Additional repairs will be required later. The county is splitting the cost with the city. The county will pay an additional $1 million next year.
The city and county missed a Feb. 2 deadline to have the Big Ditch certified.
Decertification could require thousands of homeowners to buy flood insurance or pay higher rates for existing policies.
FEMA is drawing new flood maps. Local leaders say they hope they can make the necessary repairs to the project so it can be certified before the new maps could put more properties in flood zones.
The Big Ditch is the first levee system in the country to undergo accreditation, part of stricter guidelines put in force since Hurricane Katrina decimated parts of New Orleans, where levees broke.
14 Comments
Do as I tell you or you will have to pay me a stupid tax.
-FEMA
The Big Ditch should be a park. That’s a lot of land, that’s going only to flood prevention. It could be used as a parks and recreation area also, one of the largest if not largest in any urban area. Probably the equivalent to 8 Central Parks in Manhattan. If it was full of tree’s also, it would act like a shelter belt from the weather, help break up the wind, the tree’s would use all the excess rain and flood water, and virtually eliminate any air pollution combined with the wind we have anyway.
Make it a tourist attraction, or something.
I admit i didn’t do my homework. As a 25 year old I bought a house around kellogg and 119th. The real estate agents did not bring up flood insurance until I was signing the papers (all my furniture from my old house is sitting in a u-haul). She says “You’re in a flood plain, need flood insurance, but it’s not really that much. Come to find out it’s equal to home oweners ins. Bought the house, have flooded twice in 15 years. Question: Why are agents not required in advance to disclose flood plain information (maybe they are but mine didn’t) and why does the city continue to issue building permits in the west side flood plain? Hundreds of houses have beed built to the north and west of us since we bought our home.
Make it a park? Are you kidding? Do you know what happens to the ditch every spring? Do you know why ATV riders who are caught in the ditch are fined so heavily?
Yeah, let’s fill a flood canal full of picnic tables and playground equipment that will get washed away every spring. Let’s encourage the degradation of the levees that protect the city. Let’s not study any history or engineering principals before we come up with any hair-brained schemes regarding the ditch either. After all, the ditch was built 50 years ago and we are way smarter than those jerks who built it were.
If a single point in the 90 miles of levees in Wichita-Valley Center Flood Control System ever failed, the results would be catastrophic. There are thousands of homes and business that would be wiped out, including Mid Continent Airport, Cessna, and Lear. This system is vital to our community and the protection and maintenance of it must be a top priority for everyone involved.
Additionally, in the instance of a loss of accreditation, all affected property owners should be notified in short order. I can’t buy flood insurance because I am not in a flood plane, but if the rain comes tomorrow and my house is wiped out next week, you better believe there will be some lawsuits filed because nobody bothered to tell me that I was returned to flood plane status for two months ago.
Wichitans!! we need to come up with a new name for the Big Ditch…maybe a contest with the new name announced during River Fest!!… My entry!! El Gran Zanja
johnnyphunut, or whatever your name is. I don’t mean a picnic park, I mean a nature preserve, state park, or national park.
Now THERE is a funny idea…. Come to Wichita! Tour our gigantic mile-long DITCH! Home of quicksand, snakes, toxins brought from upstream and deposited, and future site of aircraft crash-landings. As a child, I remember the ditch being full to the top and flowing over the bridges. I would hate to see us sink alot of money into setting up the ditch as anything. All it takes is some rain, and everything is destroyed, and we are out all the money that could have been used elsewhere. If we want to throw it away, let’s just give Congress another raise and let Pelosi have another luxury 757 in her gov’t hangar.
Oh, and mikaro07… How about “The Money Pit”?
OK, ScooterAbernacleCromboloski, or whatever your name is, are we supposed to put Bison in the ditch so they can drown every year, or on the outside of the ditch so they can assault the workers who maintain the pumps and valves along the 18 mile man made river.
There is no shortage of wildlife in the ditch, it is a river, it attracts it. If you want to go on a nature walk, there are plenty of other places to go.
(The Big Ditch is the first levee system in the country to undergo accreditation, part of stricter guidelines put in force since Hurricane Katrina decimated parts of New Orleans, where levees broke.)
How can you compare the Big Ditch to a Levee in New Orleans????? There is a big difference!!!
Let me tell you it is NO FUN haveing to pay for FLOOD INSURANCE!! I was not told I had to carry flood insurance until I lived in my house a year!! 7 years ago it was $200 a year and NOW Thanks to FEMA it is over $900 a year and IT HAS NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF WICHITA FLOODED IN MY AREA!! THANKS FEMA!!!
“If it was full of tree’s also, it would act like a shelter belt from the weather, help break up the wind, the tree’s would use all the excess rain and flood water…”
Yeah… cause those trees being BELOW the level of the levees would do so very much good breaking up the wind that would be blowing above their tops…. Scooter whatever – have you BEEN to El Dorado lake? Do you know what happens to trees that get submerged? They don’t live. They drown. Yes, drown. Too much water is too much water.
Measter – I like the name “Money Pit”. What about Money Ditch?
Your talking about trees in El Dorado lake that have died from being permanently submerged. Any tree, big enough can survive flood waters for weeks, as long as the flood waters recede and it eventually has sunlight again. Besides I’ve only seen the Big Ditch flood past the second stage, I’ve never seen the big ditch get anywhere close to brimming over.
Everyone, please don’t waste your comments on the “park” idea…(dumbest comment i’ve ever seen)…I also live at kellogg & 119th…we need a drainage system out there…we need a big ditch out there….AND WHAT DID THE CITY DO??????? THEY PUT A GOLF COURSE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!