In 2021, Waterfest was canceled because of flooding in downtown Excelsior Springs.

This year, the festival returned. Among its vendors was a group determined to help solve Excelsior’s flooding problem.

Planners Triveece Penelton, Laurie Brown, Becca Pruett from the firm Vireo attended Waterfest to gain public insight to flooding problems in Excelsior Springs. The trio had a downtown map and a regional map, asking residents and business owners to mark locations prone to flooding. The maps marked the Fishing River and highlighted the known flood plains of downtown. People were asked to mark the maps with orange dots and notes highlighting the spots where flooding has occurred.

The data collected will help Vireo produce a master plan to aid city officials in creating a solution to the city’s flooding problems.

“The best solutions begin with good planning and community involvement,” said City Manager Molly McGovern during the Feb. 7 City Council meeting, when council members voted to hire Vireo. “Our approach is to create a master plan of the Fishing River Watershed that can be implemented in phases, which will take almost a year to complete. Following completion of the master plan, projects can be selected, designed, property acquired and implemented as deemed appropriate.”

Projects may cross over county lines into Ray County, where the Fishing River flows into the Missouri River. City officials have met with Ray County commissioners and received their approval for possible improvement projects.

“I have asked both Clay County and (the) Ray County Commission to partner with the city to complete this work, as much of the solution to downtown flooding lies outside of our city limits,” McGovern said.

According to McGovern, the scope of work will be divided into two phases. Phase I will cost $175,000 and will review all past flood work, evaluate, analyze and build a 2D watershed model for citizen engagement.

This plan is expected to utilize better modeling tools than have been available, and thus, provide a better understanding of flooding and cumulative impacts. The result will be a plan that enables city officials to select portions of the project to build over time, attending to priority problems as they arise.

In Phase II, expected to cost $125,000, McGovern anticipates providing for greenway trails, an amenity fishing lake, naturebased solutions and an open space network to alleviate downtown flooding.

Funding for this study comes from Clay County, which approved $350,000 toward the project. The money comes from stimulus funding available through 2026.

If you have information to share regarding the Fishing River Watershed Study, fill out an online survey at tinyurl.com/FishingRiverComments.

The survey is available through July 15.