Editor’s note: This is the third story in a series of stories about the river restoration project on the Upper North Platte River.
Reconstructing the North Platte River is not going to be an easy task. It’s going to take time, cooperation from residents and most importantly, it’s going to take money—and lots of it.
The proposed project will be beneficial to river and local residents, however, it is going to cost millions of dollars.
So how much exactly is the project going to cost and where is this money going to come from?
During the river restoration public meeting in December, Mayor John Zeiger was asked the question of how the town of Saratoga would be able to afford the river project. Zeiger said that applying for grants was essential for funding the project, but an original assessment of the river had to be done first.
“That was one of the challenges we on the board budgeted for this project because we knew that if we didn’t get Stantec (survey) portion done, the grants weren’t going to be available,” Zeiger said. “So we knew that this was the first important step and we did get on board this way and we will just kind of go from there.”
Brandon Rosgen, of Wildlife Hydrology, said that the proposed project is affordable to Saratoga residents.
“There have been been a lot larger projects that have been done like this with a lot less capital than you guys have here. It is possible to get this done with the money you guys have,” B. Rosgen said. “There will be things that we propose that you guys don’t have to put money into. So this does not necessarily mean that you guys have to put money towards certain (projects in the river).”
There is not an average cost per footage for the restoration project. Dave Rosgen, of Wildlife Hydrology, said that the cost of the project will mostly depend on resources that are available.
The costs will be calculated after Stantec determines what is needed to improve the river. “We get together how many structures and how many rocks we will need and how much it will cost per rock. Sometimes we will have to generate rock fairly reasonable and not have a very long haul. Wood is not a big cost item to get to the river. The construction costs (with wood) has to do with structures,” D. Rosgen said.
“We don’t general put a price on this until we get past the preliminary design. Then we start to get a better idea of the materials and the locations and how many do we need and how many cubic yards of sediment are we going to have to move … then we get some cost of our project,” D. Rosgen added.
The exact cost of the project is still up in there air and will continue to be undetermined until the designs are completed. The town of Saratoga will be relying heavily on grants, but a plan for the project itself needs to be in place, Zeiger said.
“There are more grants available for construction of our implementation of a project than there is a design of a project,” Nathan Jean, project manager of the restoration project and Stantec representative, said. “So you have something you can take to them and say ‘we paid for this: we want to build it now.’ That is a lot more powerful than saying ‘we just have a design.’ That’s another reason why we are trying to get these conceptual designs going.”
The designs for the Upper North Platte River Restoration Project will be finalized on June 21, 2014.
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