Phase one of storm-water drainage project nears completion

Published July 2, 2007
By Airman 1st Class Daryl Knee
90th Space Wing Public Affairs

F. E. Warren AFB, Wyo. -- A $5.5 million construction project that began here July 2006 is nearing completion of the first of three phases.

The upgrade storm-water drainage project is designed to improve Warren's storm drainage system and storm sewer system by reducing peak discharges passing through the developed areas on base and into the storm drain system of Cheyenne, Wyo.

This upgrade is the result of a large storm in 1985 that caused flood-water to race down Randall Avenue toward the historic downtown of Cheyenne, flooding many homes.

"This is the first step between the city of Cheyenne and Warren to fix this problem," said Rodney Trees, chief of engineering. "Warren is leading the way to resolve these issues."

The project is so massive and costly that it had to be broken up into three phases, said Jeff Kaiser, the project engineer.

"It sure is a step in the right direction," Mr. Kaiser added.

The water will be guided down several channels to a detention pond, which will meter any excess back into Crow Creek over a calculated period without overflowing and flooding Cheyenne again, Mr. Trees said.

Phase one began with the digging of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe detention pond just north of the BNSF railroad and progressed into laying underground pipes to act as channels as well as the excavation of aboveground channels for the excess water.

Installation of the underground pipes and the aboveground channels took place from Crow Creek to across Randall Avenue and ended around Fort Banner Road.

However, for the project to be completely finished, 75 percent of the vegetation planted has to take hold, Mr. Trees said. The vegetation acts as a means of erosion control, and part of the beautification process.

"We're at 99.9 percent complete," Mr. Trees said. "The project was very successful."
The impact on mission readiness was minimal too. The construction workers on the project coordinated with the base to reduce the amount of time spent impeding Air Force duties.

"Many people didn't even know what we were doing," Mr. Trees said.

With phase one nearing completion, the only thing standing in the way of initializing phase two is the allocation of resources. Funding has to come through Congress to the command and down to the base for construction.

"We're just waiting on the money," Mr. Trees said. "This is a very expensive project and it has to compete with all other construction work out there in the Air Force."

With phase one being the ending point for the potential floodwater, phase two and three must be completed for the whole design to work as intended.

"You have to work backwards on projects like this," Mr. Kaiser said. "If you started with where you want the water collected before it runs into Crow Creek, you'd have quite a bit of that water stored with nowhere for it to go."

Hopefully, when the upgrade is completely functional, the risk of a recurring 1985 flood to Cheyenne from Warren's gates will be nonexistent.

"The whole idea behind this project," Mr. Trees said, "is that if we don't get this put in and we have a storm like before, Warren Airmen will have to start emptying out basements of Cheyenne's historic housing again. It's too important to keep our Airmen mission ready than to risk it happening again."