Coconino County officials have approved $12 million in funding to finish a series of flood control measures put in place after a devastating fire nearly three years ago east of Flagstaff.
The Pipeline Fire burned more than 26 square miles of mountain slopes and forest in the San Francisco Peaks in the spring of 2022. Severe flooding in neighborhoods east of Flagstaff followed as water rushed unchecked off slopes newly stripped of vegetation.
Since then, officials have shored up berms, drainpipes and slope restoration to slow the water coming down off the mountains in the rainy season. This last set of funding will pay for construction of the final berms to be put in place to move rushing water away from neighborhoods and from Highway 89.
More than $130 million in federal and state grants have gone into the nine flood control projects.
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