Kasson has been victimized by 100-year floods 4 times. It seeks to spend millions to protect itself

Apr. 5—KASSON, Minn. — Since 2007, the city of Kasson has borne the brunt of destructive weather events on four different occasions: Flooding at or near 100-year levels. That means a weather event with a probability of happening only once every 100 years has happened four times in the last 15 years to Kasson.

Now this small Southeast Minnesota community, grown weary of overwhelmed city sewers, flooded basements and overflowing toilets, inundated police, fire and emergency service stations, and washed out roads and highways, is looking to spend millions to protect itself from future weather disasters.

The push is in part a result of the earful city leaders have been getting from frustrated residents. After the 2019 flood, Kasson held a series of contentious city council meetings at which beleaguered residents made clear their desire for city officials to take a more active role in addressing the problem.

Now this city, 15 miles west of Rochester, is making flood relief improvements a priority and waging the effort on a number of fronts.

Kasson has a $5 million proposal to pay for flood mitigation improvements before lawmakers in St. Paul that officials hope will be included in a bonding, or capital improvement, bill. The city is also pitching in $5 million to support that plan.

It is only the most visible aspect of a multi-faceted campaign to raise the barricades against flooding events that have become more frequent as a result of climate change.

In addition, the city is also spending $6 million on smaller-size projects that will upgrade its sanitary sewer system and give it more capacity, said Brandon Theobald, Kasson's city engineer. An estimated additional half a million dollars, officials say, will be spent by residents in out-of-pocket costs to fix deficiencies in their sewer systems.

"We should not have people that are afraid to live in the basement of their house due to the sanitary sewer, the creek flooding their houses. That's just kind of the bottom line," Theobald said.

For a community of 7,000 people, these are serious dollars: an estimated $16.5 million or $2,400 for every resident who lives in Kasson.

The predicament is not so different from Rochester's half a century ago when serial flooding made Rochester vulnerable to property damage, destruction and the loss of human life.

The worst was the 1978 flood when torrential rains covered a third of Rocheseter in flood water and killed five people. Altogether, $130 million was spent to build upstream reservoirs, line several miles of stream channel in the city with rock and concrete and straighten parts of some streams.

Kasson finds itself in a similar situation, just on a smaller scale. Yet, the sense of urgency is the same.

"It's not as big as Rochester's project, by any means," Theobald said. "We are seeing a lot more rain events. The idea is to protect the city and provide a higher level of flood control for the city."

Apart from the intensity and increased frequency of flooding, Kasson's flat topography is a contributing factor. When it rains hard, Masten Creek, an east-west waterway that cuts through the heart of Kasson and hooks up with the Zumbro River in Mantorville, often overruns its banks. The result: A downtown flooded and rampant sewer backups.

Officials say the bonding request will help pay for stormwater impoundment upstream of along the south side of U.S. Highway 14. In the event of another 100-year flood, the flood elevation for the city would be about 2 feet lower than in the past. That may not seem like a lot to ordinary people, but it is significant in "stormwater terms," Theobald said.

"Instead of flooding the properties, as the water elevation is two feet lower, it's not as impactful to our sanitary sewer system," Theobald said. "We think it's going to provide a great benefit to the city."

But whether a bonding bill that includes the Kasson flood mitigation provision passes this session remains an open question. The Kasson plan is sponsored by Sen. Carla Nelson and Rep. Duane Quam, both Republicans.

While the DFL controls the legislative machinery in St. Paul, public works bills require a three-fifths majority to pass. That requirement is where Quam and Nelson hope to see DFL support for their efforts.

Two weeks ago, a $1.5 billion bonding bill failed in the Minnesota Senate, with Republican members in the chamber vowing to withhold their support until Democrats approve tax relief from the state's multi-billion dollar budget surplus. However, for Nelson and Quam, the good news is that the $5 million for flood mitigation in Kasson was part of that bill, meaning, so far, the DFL does support this expenditure.

Still, Nelson, along with every other Republican, voted against the overall bill.

For Nelson, another issue besides the absence of meaningful tax relief that prompted her no vote was the vote's timing. Typically, tax and bonding bills are the "last trains out of the station" in a session. Bonding bills in particular are typically thoroughly negotiated and don't reach the floor until "you've got the votes."

"I have voted for every bonding bill, because I think bonding bills are important. But I had no problem voting against this one," Nelson said. "It was outrageous, quite frankly, that it was coming so early and that there had been no step toward any type of tax relief."

Nelson, who sits on the Senate Investment Committee, remains confident that a bonding bill will pass at the end of session.

"I would not think that bonding is out of the question this year. I'd be disappointed if it were," Nelson said. "I expect there will be a bonding bill."