Fiftieth Anniversary of Watershed Program

Rehabilitation of the White Tanks number 3 flood control structure

Thank you, Tim.
Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be here this morning to announce Phase I of the rehabilitation of the White Tanks number 3 flood control structure. This is the first $6 million of a $24-million project. I would like to thank our local sponsors Flood Control District of Maricopa County Agua Fria NRCD and Buckeye Valley NRCD for their pivotal role in making this rehabilitation possible. It’s fitting that we’re making this important announcement today, as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the PL-83-566 Watershed Program. White Tanks number 3 is part of a long history of NRCS-assisted flood control operations. Over the years, we’ve helped complete work on 2,000 watershed projects throughout the Nation. In fact, since 1948, nearly $6 billion in USDA watershed programs assistance has gone to local communities to help construct 11 thousand dams in 47 States. Additionally, NRCS has engineered roughly 26,000 of the 77,000 dams in the National Inventory. And while we can look back over the years on a very impressive track record of dam construction, this record presents us with even greater challenges for the future.

The Nation’s population is sprawling out into ever larger areas of the countryside. And as is it does, it is going to be an equal – or perhaps even greater challenge to protect lives and property from flooding. Every day, the importance of maintaining our dams and flood control structures becomes more critical. Consider that NRCS built an average of one dam every day from 1955 to 1975. Most of those dams were designed for a 50-year design life. We are rapidly approaching the end of the design life for all the dams. Over the next 2 decades one dam each day will be reaching the end of its original design life. So it’s easy to understand the critical importance of dam rehabilitation.

In light of the enormous job we face, I am VERY pleased to be able to announce we are beginning work on White Tanks number 3 – one of the Nation’s top priority dams. I’m sure that everyone in this room and certainly the roughly 6,000 people in this rapidly urbanizing watershed will be pleased to learn that rehabilitation for the White Tanks No. 3 is underway. The work will correct dam safety deficiencies and modernize the dam to meet current NRCS and State of Arizona standards. And in terms of protecting lives and property, this project will protect roughly 800 structures, 8,000-plus acres in the watershed –including more than 4,000 acres of cropland.

I want to get to your questions, but I think that it might be helpful if I briefly mentioned some of the highlights of the rehabilitation of White Tanks. The rehab work on White Tanks number 3 will include repair of the foundation, earth fissures, and embankment cracking. The rehabilitation with also include raising the top of the dam to account for past and future land subsidence. There will be a modification of the auxiliary spillway to prevent rapid loss of reservoir due to spillway erosion. There will also be a number of other important repairs, modifications, and land acquisition as part of the project. So you can see what a big job we are undertaking.
And that’s as simply as I can describe a very complex task. So let’s get to your questions.
Thank you.