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Chase Stoneberger of the City of Flagstaff water services department turns a valve to close the drain on the southern end of the Frances Short Pond Tuesday morning. City staff dropped the level of the Frances Short Pond Sunday and early Monday so that it could operate as a temporary retention basin meant to slow the passage of floodwaters along the Rio de flag drainage. The floodwater flows into the north end of the pond along the Rio from Coconino Estates and then flows out the southern end, rejoining the Rio moving through downtown Flagstaff and into the Southside neighborhood.
Frances Short Pond, a beloved fishing site and recreational area in Flagstaff, has been drained several feet to serve as a retention basin for Pipeline West floodwaters moving downstream through the Rio De Flag.
The pond was identified as “an opportunity for us to take advantage of a kind of a controlled outflow,” said Scott Overton, incident commander for the Pipeline West flood response crew.
Staff with the City of Flagstaff drained Frances Short Pond late Sunday into Monday morning to lower the water level so the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel -- which enters the north end of the pond from Coconino Estates and drains out of the south end toward downtown and Flagstaff’s Southside neighborhood.
Draining the pond is typically done for maintenance, but the severity of flooding from the Schultz Creek watershed upstream prompted Overton and his team to repurpose the pond as a flood mitigation tool. Specifically, it will now act as a “point of detention” that provides the city with more time to respond to floodwaters as they move through the Rio de Flag.
“All these floodwaters are eventually finding their way to the Southside,” Overton said. “With that [the pond’s] extra capacity, it buys us 20 to 30 minutes before we see those impacts further downstream."
Water at Frances Short Pond was drained late Sunday into Monday morning to lower the water level so that the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel.
The pond has an ABS valve on the backside that “allows us to drain off the pond when necessary,” Overton said.
“They can drop it 2 or 3 feet without damaging the actual pond infrastructure,” he said.
Under normal conditions, draining the pond could have impacted the populations of fish stocked in the water feature, but fish populations were already significantly reduced by deoxygenated conditions created when runoff from the Pipeline Fire scar entered the pond. Even before the draining, the pond was not expected to be re-stocked until spring of 2023.
The pond is to remain drained as long as flood risk persists.
The National Weather Service continues to forecast a high likelihood of rain through next Thursday, with at least a 60% chance of precipitation each day. Those conditions mirror what Flagstaff received for the latter half of July, though the official measurement at the airport still has the area below average on rain for the year to date.
Staff at the City of Flagstaff have drained the Frances Short Pond in order to lower the water level so that the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel.
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Sean Golightly reports on the environment and the city of Flagstaff. Reach him at sgolightly@azdailysun.com, on Twitter at @sean_golightly, or on Instagram at @golightly_writes.
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Chase Stoneberger of the City of Flagstaff water services department turns a valve to close the drain on the southern end of the Frances Short Pond Tuesday morning. City staff dropped the level of the Frances Short Pond Sunday and early Monday so that it could operate as a temporary retention basin meant to slow the passage of floodwaters along the Rio de flag drainage. The floodwater flows into the north end of the pond along the Rio from Coconino Estates and then flows out the southern end, rejoining the Rio moving through downtown Flagstaff and into the Southside neighborhood.
Staff with the City of Flagstaff drained Frances Short Pond late Sunday into Monday morning to lower the water level so the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel -- which enters the north end of the pond from Coconino Estates and drains out of the south end toward downtown and Flagstaff’s Southside neighborhood.
Water at Frances Short Pond was drained late Sunday into Monday morning to lower the water level so that the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel.
Staff at the City of Flagstaff have drained the Frances Short Pond in order to lower the water level so that the pond can act as a retention basin to hold floodwaters from the Rio de Flag channel.
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