With the design plans for post-fire flood mitigation projects in four local washes near completion, Gila County and JE Fuller Hydrology & Geomorphology have presented details of those plans to the public. In a pair of community outreach meetings, JE Fuller project manager Joe Loverich and County staff discussed the firm’s proposals for work on Bloody Tanks Wash, Ice House Canyon, Russell Gulch and Six Shooter Canyon.

Designs for the four projects are approximately 90% complete, and the County has begun working with property owners in the project areas to acquire temporary construction easements and drainage easements. “We’re not just going to take over someone’s property,” said County Supervisor Tim Humphrey.

The next steps include project review and approval by the federal  Natural Resources Conservation Service, and obtaining U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits. These steps were anticipated to be complete this month for Bloody Tanks Wash and Ice House Canyon, and in August for Russell Gulch and Six Shooter Canyon. The projects will then go out to bid; construction in Bloody Tanks Wash and Ice House Canyon was anticipated to start in October 2022, with the work on Russell Gulch and Six Shooter Canyon beginning in December.

Loverich said there would be some grading upstream and downstream of the Bloody Tanks Wash bridge at the west end of Miami; the former to allow water to get to the bridge more efficiently, and the latter to increase flow efficiency in the channel. He said that almost a third of the channel’s capacity downstream of the culvert was restricted by sediment buildup. “This allows a little bit more water to be able to stay in the channel,” he said of the proposed work. “This is something that can help the problem; it is not something that solves the problem,” he added. “The project started a little bigger and had to be scaled back due to a lot of utility conflicts within the wash, and just a lot of things that have been placed in the wash over the years, that really limited the amount of work that could be done without completely opening up that end of the town.”

Loverich described the Ice House Canyon plan, which centers on the county-owned Albany Drive bridge, as one of the smaller projects. Mitigation plans there include riprap upstream to protect the bridge inlet and abutments, cutting off concrete accretions that have accumulated downstream, a gabion stepped structure and a gabion wall tying in the slope on the channel’s far side. “It’s not a very invasive project; it’s really protecting that bridge and keeping that water flowing through it the right way,” Loverich said.

At Russell Gulch, the project will include some grading to widen the channel near the south end of the residential area, as well as a secondary channel with a soil-cement bank to protect the road from washouts, a soil-cement-lined channel from just above Little Acres to Besich Boulevard and a soil-cement bank toward the hospital. “The purpose of this is to give that water a place to fl ow rather than through homes,” Loverich said. “We’re catching the water upstream of Little Acres (with the soil-cement channel),” Loverich said. “Downstream, the channel right bank, toward the substation, is going to lay back and we are going to let that water spread through the area that it wants to spread. We want that water to be able to spread this way, which helps give a detention effect, helps slow the water just a little bit and helps some of the sediment drop out before it gets down to the box culverts.” There will also be a slight channel expansion downstream of Besich Boulevard, “basically from Besich down to the curve,” and an eight-cell 4 x 10 box culvert on Hospital Drive.

Gila County Public Works Director Steve Sanders, replying to a resident’s question, said there are plans to repair the flood-damaged stretches of Russell Road and that the county has been working with the Forest Service to obtain federal funding for those repairs.

The Six Shooter Canyon project starts at Delores Lane, where JE Fuller proposes to replace the current box culvert with a 32-foot-wide arch structure, which would be about 10 feet wider, and add some riprap upstream. Loverich said roadside erosion was a concern in some downstream locations. “When scour events begin, it can happen very quickly and you can lose whole sections of the road.” The project envisions using soil nails and shotcrete reinforcement to protect high-risk portions of the bank, generally on the outside of bends in the wash. “This is not a full wash construction project, but very specific areas where we’re seeing high [water] velocities and high scour potential, and where there is observable scour.” Bank protection will focus on three areas; near Mountain Shadows Mobile Home Park, just upstream of Arizona Reservation Ministries and around Abiquiu Bridge. Loverich said that, aside from the new culvert, the project would not increase channel capacity. “That’s not what we’re intending to do; what we want to do is help protect what’s there from getting washed out.”

Part of the proposal, the removal of some cottonwood trees in Six Shooter Canyon, drew opposition from some residents. “We all bought this property for the trees and environment,” said Floyd Krank, who called their removal “totally unfounded,” said residents had not been consulted and argued that most of the work could be done without removing the trees. “We don’t have a lot of green as it is,” said Margo Flores, adding that since last July work has widened and dug out the wash. “Six Shooter is renowned for some of the beautiful trees that is has. Can we just totally take them away without a second thought?”

“This is something we have not taken lightly on this design,” Loverich replied. “We have tried our best to limit tree removal; this is a riparian area and we love our riparian areas. In certain areas, though, some of the trees have to come down to put this in.” He said the total area was about 2,000 feet along the two-mile stretch of road in question, adding that improvements were being coordinated with property owners. “The County is not going to go in there and take your trees out if you don’t approve.”

“We’re looking to protect life and property and roads, and because NRCS requires it, to provide bank stabilization,” said Assistant County Manager Homero Vela, in one of his final meetings before retiring at the beginning of July. “We’re making a decision, and our decision is basically ‘Do we want to save lives or do we want to save trees?’ We’re trying to come up with a solution that does no harm, that tries to maintain the flow of the channel and avoid overtopping, maintain that road and do it with the dollars available.”