South Side Flood Control

Location: Fargo and West Fargo, ND

Clients: Moore Engineering, Inc., Houston Engineering, Inc., and Kadmras, Lee & Jackson, Inc.

Owners: Cities of West Fargo and Fargo, ND

Services: Engineering consulting, construction monitoring and materials testing

Year: 2008

The South Side Flood Control project involved protecting residential and public properties from flooding of the Red and Wild Rice Rivers. We were retained to help develop plans and specifications for the design and construction of levees, floodwalls and storage channels/basins.

We evaluated the stability of the flood control structures and potential for seepage, and estimated structure settlement. Our analyses targeted a variety of seepage and stability conditions, which helped the design consultants optimize the location and length of the flood control structures relative to the river alignments and grades along the alignments, as well as alter structure geometry to accommodate difficult grades or improve stability, and save properties that otherwise might have been abandoned.

We helped design levees with steeper slopes and recommended minimum foundation embedment for floodwalls to maintain adequate setbacks from unstable areas, and developed recommendations of structurally retaining residential properties with sheet piling acting as a floodwall where a setback could not otherwise be maintained. We are using the results of our work on new construction to evaluate existing structures for FEMA certification under Section 65.10 of the National Flood Insurance Program.