An Initial Engineering Assessment, or IEA, is a tool that the Flood Control District has developed to perform a comprehensive and holistic assessment of drainage and flooding issues in communities throughout the County. IEAs utilize available data and information and/or generate new data and information that helps the Flood Control District to identify and prioritize conceptual flood mitigation strategies, both for existing, and for possible future development.

It is important to note that flood mitigation strategies come in many forms, and in order for the Flood Control District to implement any strategy, it must be technically, legally, environmentally, socially and financially feasible. A primary purpose of IEAs is to identify possible mitigation strategies in your area and in other communities throughout the County, that meet these criteria so that they can be prioritized and included in the Flood Control District’s Long-Term Mitigation Plan.

The Flood Control District is currently conducting IEAs in five FEMA-mapped Special Flood Hazard Areas. As FEMA-mapped areas, these are some of the highest risk areas currently identified in Coconino County, over which the Flood Control District has jurisdiction.

The IEA process is an important and innovative tool for the District to be able to assess risks, conceptual mitigation strategies, cost/benefit analyses, and other technical, legal, environmental, social, and fiscal feasibility issues within one area, and to compare them with those same issues in other areas, so that apples-to-apples comparisons can be made.

Once the first five IEAs are completed, they will be used by the Coconino County Board of Supervisors to make data-driven decisions as to where the Flood Control District’s limited funding is allocated for further project development and implementation, and according to what timeline. We anticipate this process to begin with the development of the County’s fiscal year 2017 budget, and to result in a five to 10 year plan for implementing projects to mitigate the highest risks.