09.03.15

Hoeven, City, State Officials Break Ground for $29 Million Flood Protection Project for Minot's Water Treatment Plant

Senator Worked to Secure $22 Million in Federal Support, 75 Percent of Project Cost

MINOT, N.D. – Senator John Hoeven, along with city and state officials, today broke ground on a new multi-million flood protection project for the city of Minot’s new hazard mitigation water treatment plant. The project entails construction of a floodwall and modifications to infrastructure to protect the city’s water supply from flooding of the Mouse/Souris River and to maintain the plants’ ability to provide safe drinking water to residents during incidents of high water.

“The Minot flood of 2011 forced thousands of people to boil their water before using it because it was contaminated by high water,” Hoeven said. “Now we’re taking steps to reduce the chances of that happening again. While we still have more work to do, we’ve made great strides in restoring Minot and improving infrastructure to protect against another flood, and we’ll continue to do that project by project.”

Seventy-five percent of the $29 million project, or $22 million, will be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), which Hoeven worked to secure as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Homeland Security.

The federal funding is coming in several installments and will cover 75 percent of the project. In 2013, Hoeven announced a $2 million HMGP grant to the City of Minot to fund Phase I of the project, which focused on engineering, permitting and design, and was completed in 2014. The senator announced subsequent awards for Phase II, the construction phase, of $6.09 million in May and $5.9 million in August. The balance will be awarded between November 2015 and November 2016 in several more installments. The federal share for Phase II of the is $19.8 million and the total for both phases is $22 million.

The construction of the project will include 1,700 feet of concrete flood wall, two structures that would close the gap in a levee that is created by a road, a storm water pump station and modifications to the water treatment transmission pipeline.

Through his role on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, Hoeven has worked extensively to ensure the grant funding for the City of Minot was authorized and appropriated. To date, Minot and Ward County have received more than $45 million in HMGP funding to assist with recovery efforts resulting from flooding in 2011. Since the flood of 2011, Hoeven has worked to bring more than $650 million to the city and region in grants, loans and direct assistance.

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