Eagle Mountain’s project to reduce flooding threat

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah County — After an unseasonably rainy spring, certain neighborhoods in Eagle Mountain witnessed multiple floods.

“I watched my garbage can float away downstream,” Eagle Mountain resident Teresa Barrett, who lives on Dugway Drive said. “It was a muddy river and we need this new pipe because we had flooding a couple of times.”

Communications Manager for Eagle Mountain City, Tyler Maffitt, said the city’s storm drain system is pegged for seasonal precipitation that happens once every 10 years.  This year has exceeded the water limit.

“It’s not a lack of planning; we just try to peg it.  Now that we have a new average we can make the investments where they are needed and hopefully that stops this from happening again,” Maffitt said.

Crews are placing a larger pipe with greater capacity at the intersection of Horizon and Dugway Drives.

“We have tons of traffic, tons of residents moving in here; we’re sitting at 65,000 residents just now,” Maffitt said. “We offered free sandbags at city parks earlier this year because officials knew the snowpack was going to be extreme.  What we didn’t anticipate was the heavy rains.”

“My neighbors ended up with a lot of damage to their home which was really sad and stressful for them,” Barrett said. “We had mudslides in our backyard.”

Crews will be removing asphalt and the older pipe to replace the storm drainage system.  The road will reopen on September 27.

“Between all the pipe replacement projects going on this summer and fall in Eagle Mountain, we’re looking at just over $20,000. Taxes will not be affected,” Maffitt said.  “We think that’s a modest price for such an upgrade.”