Current Flood Mitigation
The Lowertown area of Saint Paul is prone to impacts from Mississippi River flood events. To mitigate these impacts, the Sewer Utility has utilized a system of temporary flood barriers comprised of berms and sandbags. Construction of the temporary system is labor intensive, and due to the long mobilization and demobilization timeframes, is significantly impactful to the vehicular and pedestrian users of the street system. The temporary system has limited reliability as it reliant on adjacent existing infrastructure that may have not been designed with flood mitigation design criteria.
Flood Mitigation Project
Saint Paul Public Works is pursuing funding to implement more permanent flood mitigation systems in Lowertown. The proposed flood mitigation system would be located in Lowertown at three locations (Jackson-Second, Sibley-Second and Jackson-Shepard). The proposed deployable units at these locations can be installed and removed significantly more rapidly than the berms and sandbags used currently.
It is expected that Mississippi River flood events will increase in frequency, and an engineered and deployable flood mitigation system will increase reliability and decrease impacts to the citizens of Saint Paul.
