DOT official rejects bill for Colfax flood

The state Department of Transportation has turned down a request to pay for City of Colfax expenses in combating the Feb. 12 flood in downtown Colfax. Mayor Todd Vanek reported on the DOT response at Monday night’s city council session.

Vanek met with DOT officials March 4 and received a letter three days later from Keith Metcalf, regional administrator for the Department of Transportation. The letter said the DOT was “unable to participate” in the cleanup costs incurred by the City of Colfax from the downtown flood.

The mayor subsequently sent a letter to Mike Gribner, assistant administrator for DOT construction in the region, and asked for support in covering its costs and to submit the bill to his bosses as a necessary expense. Copies of the letters were sent to 9th district legislators. Gribner was the key official at the March 4 session.

Mayor Vanek before the session said he planned to seek payment of $12,000 to cover expenses from the flood. In a follow-up letter to the state office, he said the city’s expenses included $9,600 for trying to control the flood and another $2,600 in labor losses when city employees were pulled away from their regular jobs to counter the flood.

Vanek said Monday night he has also received claims from two businesses who sustained damage from the flood.

Streets in downtown Colfax were flooded when a large volume of runoff water came out of the flood drain system and into the streets. The water came down the drainage ditch along the Palouse Highway grade, entered the city’s large flood culvert beneath Canyon Street and then pushed up out a manhole cover on the street’s surface.

The city has contended rocks and debris which were left in the channel when the state excavated a newly installed culvert along the highway came down the ditch and blocked up the large drain under Canyon. The blockage caused the pressure to build up and the water to push off the drain cover and erupt onto the street.

The state had removed its ill-fated culvert project along the highway after two prior flooding episodes earlier in the winter.

Metcalf in his letter said based on evidence from the DOT investigation they believe the downtown flood was a result of extraordinary volume of water simply overwhelming the City of Colfax drainage system. He pointed out TV scans of the drain before and after the flood showed the line beneath Canyon Street was clear.

Vanek told the council Monday night he has pointed out to the state that the Feb. 12 downtown flood episode did not seem to be excessive because it did not impact the city’s normal flood zone area along Clay Street.

The mayor Monday night also reported the post-flood negotiations with the DOT have led to a debate about who owns the property where the channel is located along the highway. He said state officials have suggested the city owns the property because city crews in the past have removed brush and debris from the channel along the highway.

Council members said it was hard to see why the state last fall spent $300,000 on its ill-fated culvert project along the highway if it believed it didn’t own the right-of-way property.

Metcalf in his letter said the state opted to remove the $300,000 culvert installation after determing ice buildup inside the newly-installed culvert reduced the volume capacity and caused two previous episodes of flooding during the winter. The DOT contracted for the project last fall in an effort to stop erosion which threatens to take out the base of the highway.