Climate Change Has St. Cloud Officials Worried About Floods

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — Local officials and area representatives gathered recently in a sunroom by Lake George to discuss the need to invest in local infrastructure as more frequent and heavy rain events caused by climate change strain aging stormwater systems and cause more flooding in St. Cloud.

Gov. Tim Walz is proposing new legislation that would establish a $21.1 million grant program for stormwater infrastructure upgrades around the state.

“Communities across our state are facing a common threat. Extreme weather events like mega-rains are intensifying because of climate change,” said Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Katrina Kessler. “Minnesota is becoming warmer and wetter. In fact, the 2010s were Minnesota’s wettest decade on record, and these mega-rain events are now four times more likely to occur than just four generations ago.”

A “mega-rain” is described by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as an event where six inches of rain or more covers more than 1,000 square miles in 24 hours or less, with at least eight inches of rainfall somewhere else in that area. According to the DNR, from 2000-2021 Minnesota saw twice as many mega-rains than in 1973-1999, the St. Cloud Times reported.

More frequent downpours result in more flooding, which threatens homes, businesses and critical infrastructure including roads and hospitals, Kessler said.

“Today, more than 155,000 homes and apartment buildings,13,000 commercial buildings and 29,000 miles of roads in Minnesota are at risk of severe flooding,” she said. “This type of flooding takes an incredible toll on our local economies and our individual pocketbooks. According to the Insurance Federation of Minnesota, extreme weather events have caused insurance premiums to increase by 366% in our state since 1998. If Minnesota cities are not prepared for climate change, our residents and businesses will continue to bear the brunt of these devastating weather events.”

The grant money would go toward upgrading critical stormwater infrastructure around the state to mitigate flood damage and help cities adapt to the changing climate, Kessler said. Local governments will be able to identify issues in their own community, put plans together and propose solutions that make sense for them, she said.

Once the legislative session ends in May, they’ll know the fate of this bonding request, and if it passes, six months later cities would be able to apply for grants through the MPCA, Kessler said.

“The way that it is currently set up is each project could receive up to $5 million, so that would pay for one project here. And depending on the scope of the project, we’re hoping to fund four to 20 projects across the state,” she said. “Obviously, that is not addressing the entire need. But again, I think that this sends a signal that we are needing to invest in this and prepares the state and communities to think about how we can use the federal dollars coming to the state more efficiently through the bipartisan infrastructure investment.”

“We’ve got 200 miles of stormwater pipes in this city, 24,000 structures. And a lot of those pipes, by the way, are 100 years old and they were put in the ground in the ’20s,” said Mayor Dave Kleis at the meeting. “So not only are they aged, but the material that was used (is not what we’d use now).”

Although people can see projects such as road improvements for themselves, “they forget about all the pipes that are in the ground that really increase their (property) value,” he said.

“We don’t get calls until their neighborhood is flooded,” Kleis said. “But what we put in the ground to protect that is extremely important.”

One of the projects the city is looking to get funding for is a $3 million stormwater infrastructure project on Highway 23’s lift station, which is over 60 years old deteriorating. A lift station is used to move wastewater from lower to higher elevation.

The lift station’s 100-acre watershed includes important area waters like Lake George. Past failures of the lift station have resulted in significant flooding of nearby roads.

Other St. Cloud infrastructure projects include a project to reroute stormwater away from a 1900s brick storm sewer that has served as a home for local bats, stormwater infrastructure improvements in the Pantown neighborhood and stormwater improvements by Spirit Lake and Point Pleasant.

Sartell is looking for funding too, to fix roads that have prematurely failed and stop flooding, said Sartell Public Works Director John Kothenbeutel.

Sartell City Engineer April Ryan said some residents have had their homes flooded over a number of years as extreme weather worsens, and flooding is “making roads icy in the winter and slimy in the summer.”

Treatment systems around Sartell also need maintenance and are full of sediment, which has been causing flooding too, she said.

“Sartell took a couple interns and put them in kayaks the last couple of summers and put some sonar equipment and measured the amount of sediment that was in those ponds. And we need to remove over 6,500 tons of sediment, which equates to about 930 elephants worth of sediment that Sartell alone needs to take out of their ponds,” Ryan said. “And those costs associated with that, they’re estimating $6 million to $8 million in just removing sediments alone. So it’s just compounding with the amount of money needed to address stormwater infrastructure.”

Both Rep. Tama Theis, R-St. Cloud, and Sen. Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, expressed the need to address flooding in the area.

“Many of us have driven down Ninth Avenue and seen it flooded. Have you ever stopped to think that that’s where any ambulance has to go? That’s where a firetruck has to go?” Putnam said. “This is not just an issue of our quality of life, though it absolutely is that. It’s not just an issue of preparing for growth and for the general infrastructural needs of our community. It’s an issue of public safety, to be able to take care of these kind of deeper structural concerns, prepare our community for an average day and for an awful one at the same time.”