Midwest Levee Inspectors, a Joint Venture Between Intuition & Logic and Hultgren Tillis, was retained by the US Army Corps of Engineers LA District to conduct Initial Eligibility Inspections and prepare Inspection Reports for 73 Flood Control Works (FCW), W912P9-10-D-0505, Task Order CQ01. The FCWs including 29 Channels and 44 Basins ranging in size from small to massive. The FCW’s protect over 557 square miles of land in Los Angeles County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and San Diedo County.

 

Declez Basin Inlet - San Bernardino County

 

The purpose of the Initial Eligibility Inspections (IEIs) is to determine whether Non-Federally constructed Flood Damage Reduction (FDR) basins and channels meet the minimum criteria and standards of Engineering Regulation (ER) 500-1-1 (USACE 2001), and Engineering Pamphlet (EP) 500-1-1 for initial inclusion into the Rehabilitation and Inspection Program (RIP). The objective of this effort is to collect background information, to perform field inspections, and to prepare IEI Reports for Non-Federally sponsored FDR basin and channel projects.

 

The team evaluated engineering design plans and calculations, facility location, contributing drainage area, design flows and developed a GIS database for each FCW as a part of the initial assessment. For those FCWs that passed the initial assessment, our team performed an Initial Eligibility site Inspection. Inspection data was collected in GIS for inclusion in the USACE GIS FCW Database.

 

San Sevaine Basin Spillway - San Bernardino County

 

The initial eligibility inspections were conducted in accordance with (ER) 500-1-1 (USACE 2001), and (EP) 500-1-1. The USACE RIP contains detailed inspection checklists which were used during the initial eligibility inspection of the project. The checklists were the USACE Rating Criteria for Initial Eligibility, USACE Rating Criteria for General Items for All Flood Damage Reduction Systems, USACE Rating Criteria for Flood Damage Reduction Channels and USACE Rating Criteria for Dams. Individual items of the project features were rated acceptable, minimally acceptable, or unacceptable. Field GIS data was collected using a Trimble Yuma hand held device with ArcMap. USACE metadata protocol were used and all GIS data was incorporated into the USACE, LA District FCW GIS Database. The data was also incorporated into the USACE LA District RIP Program Main Database.

 

 

Data collection and field inspections were closely coordinated with the local sponsor for each facilities. The 73 FCWs were split between 6 local sponsor agencies: San Bernardino County, Riverside County, Beaumont Cheery Valley Water District, City of Lancaster, City of Poway and the City of Los Angeles. The local sponsors submitted technical data such as as-built plans, hydraulic design, geotechnical data, and gage locations.

 

Final reports included internal independent technical review, Executive Summary, General Information, Public Sponsor Information, Technical Datam, Economic Information, FCW Flood Damage and Repairs History, Current Status, Results of Initial Eligibility Inspection, References, Figures and Maps, Tables and Appendices. All maps were created in GIS following USACE standard format. The reports included USACE comment tracking an resolution. The contributing drainage areas for each facility was delineated in GIS. Hydraulic analysis was performed for spillway/outlet works capacity and channel capacity using industry standard calculation methodology.

 

 

Economic analysis included determining the land usage and value of the areas receiving flood risk reduction from the flood control facility. Land use included Agricultural, residential, undeveloped, public recreation, commercial and industrial.