Disaster funding will help the City of Salina pay for the removal of the log jam along the Smoky Hill River at Bill Burke Park.

City Commissioners were told Monday that disaster relief funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is anticipated. Preliminary Disaster Assessments include $325,925.93 for July, and $388,404.24 for September, resulting in a total of $714,330.17.

The FEMA Disaster cost share is as follows: Federal = 75%, State = 10% and City 15%. Based on $714,330.17 preliminary cost estimates and 85% disaster funding, the City could receive $607,180 in disaster relief funding.

Disaster relief funding is based on actual costs.

Since the cleanup project was first approved, the cost to complete it has increased. There have been a couple of issues including another significant rain event which caused the log jam to increase substantially in size.

The September event washed out a portion of the rock equipment pad. The additional cost for rebuilding the rock equipment pad was $35,086.13. The work plan was to construct a rock equipment pad in the river channel near the scour key to set equipment on and then remove the log jam from the river channel, using water flow in the river to push the log jam to the removal point. The number of storm events and force of the water packed the logs into the
mud bottom of the river channel. The log jam did not move toward the removal point. An access road constructed of the larger logs with a rock cap was utilized to move the log jam material to the removal point. The additional cost to build the access road was $49,446.22.

The project was approved in late July at a cost of just over $452,000. That number has now increased to $1.2 million because of the previously mentioned issues.

This amendment does not include the costs for channel or intake structure repair, which will now be needed. It is undetermined at this time if those expenses will be reimbursable.

Commissioners approved amending the original agreement to include the cost increase. The total project now is not to exceed $1,212,169.75