Fear Of Flooding Moran Prairie Residents Want Adequate Drainage At Site Of Proposed Regal Park Shopping Center In/Around: Moran Prairie

Future development on Moran Prairie could cause a small creek at 44th and Regal to become a raging torrent during heavy storms.

A county watershed study says the tiny creek that crosses a low spot on South Regal could one day swell to 300 times its present volume and inundate the area with water.

That’s one reason Moran Prairie residents have formed a grass-roots organization and become government watchdogs.

They say local government is not protecting the public’s interests and that the latest development plan is a good example.

A 70,000-square-foot grocery store is being proposed on property that includes the creek.

Last week, developers of the Regal Park shopping center went before the city hearing examiner asking approval of an eight-acre site that includes a separate Wendy’s restaurant and a small retail shop.

County officials did not testify at the hearing even though their preliminary watershed study calls for protecting the site for a future stormwater system.

The proposed shopping center is just inside city limits.

“It’s a delicate issue,” said Bruce Rawls, director of the Spokane County Utilities Division.

“We really can’t tell the city what to do inside city limits,” he said.

But neighborhood leaders said local government is not doing enough.

“They are not communicating,” said Susan Brudnicki, president of the Moran Prairie Neighborhood Association. “There is no joint planning.”

City staff has accepted the developer’s proposal to install a 12-foot-wide grassy swale to handle water running across the site.

The channel design is based on the creek’s existing flow of about 2 cubic feet per second. A private engineer hired by the developer came up with the design.

But preliminary figures from the county’s ongoing watershed study said floods could reach many times that volume. The county’s consultant estimated maximum flood flows at 95 to 665 cubic feet per second at the proposed shopping center site.

That much water could come once Moran Prairie develops to full urban density and a severe storm hits.

In such an event, Rawls said, water would spill across Regal and over parking lots. Homes farther down the creek in the area of 42nd and Freya would probably be flooded, he said.

Consultants on the watershed study are recommending the use of storm pipe or a 100-foot-wide natural corridor to drain and contain floodwaters.

Brudnicki said she asked county officials to attend the hearing and testify about the watershed study, but they declined.

Instead, county officials sent two unsigned memos to the hearing examiner.

That left the neighborhood association to make its case for stormwater protection on the Regal Park development site.

They are calling for the developer to pay for the cost of installing a storm system large enough to handle future flood flows.

The neighborhood association spent $1,000 to hire a private engineer to testify last Tuesday before Hearing Examiner Greg Smith.

Engineer Jeff Logan told Smith the cost of a future stormwater system for the area could increase substantially if pipe is installed around the shopping center after it is built.

Already, the stormwater system is estimated to cost $20 million. The watershed study calls for retaining natural corridors, including the low-lying Regal Park property.

Each additional mile of pipe adds about $1 million to the cost of the system.

Neighborhood leaders said the developer should pay for an adequate system to handle floodwaters well into the future rather than forcing the public to pay later.

Logan also questioned the effectiveness of infiltration ponds planned by the developer to handle water coming from the stores and parking lots.

He said ponds in front of the Shopko store just to the south already are failing to drain water into the ground, and the proposed Regal Park ponds will have the same problem.

The county has banned the use of infiltration ponds on Moran Prairie. The city still allows them but is considering a ban, too.

The eight-acre development is being sought by Ralph Berg, a Spokane heart surgeon; his wife, Mary; and their son, Rick Berg.

Todd Whipple, an engineer hired by the Bergs, said he has designed surface water systems for several developments on Moran Prairie and believes he knows the hydrology of the area as well as anyone.

Whipple told the hearing examiner the ponds and channel are sufficient to handle water flows.

Cheryl Gwinn, of the Moran neighborhood group, submitted a map showing the locations of homes in new developments downstream from the shopping center where basements and yards were flooded last winter.

She told the hearing examiner that the public will pay for fixing problems.

“The more we develop, the more it’s going to cost to fix the problems …,” Gwinn said.

Rick Berg said the shopping center is being designed with walkways and landscaping to fit into the environment.

“We want this development to be a friendly development in the neighborhood,” he told the hearing examiner. “We also want it to be successful.”

The neighborhood association has pushed for a temporary ban on new development until problems such as the storm runoff are solved. Elected officials have declined to impose a moratorium.

In an interview after the hearing, the county’s Rawls said neighborhood groups expect the city and county to protect them from growth when their role is simply to regulate it under land-use laws.

“They get very frustrated with us sometimes,” Rawls said.

, DataTimes