It

will be some time yet before residents of 24

homes in the Ginger Cake Creek flood plain see

any relief.

"It's

going to take probably several years to implement

[several flood prevention projects],"

Fayetteville city engineer Don Easterbrook told

City Council in preparation for Monday's council

meeting.

But

owners of about 20 homes currently listed as in

the flood plain will get a break by no longer

being required to have flood insurance,

Easterbrook said.

Consultant

Don Moore recently completed an analysis of

flooding along the creek, showing that the flood

plain map for the area is inaccurate.

City

Council Monday approved submitting a letter of

map revision to the Federal Emergency Management

Agency.

Once

FEMA revises its flood insurance rate map for the

area, those homeowners can drop their flood

insurance if they like, Easterbrook said.

But

Moore's study also identified 24 homes within the

flood plain, some with only footings or crawl

spaces in the flood zone, and still others with

flood plain as high as six feet above basement

floors.

"Although

we probably cannot lower the flood plain enough

to get all the homes out of the flood plain, we

may be able to make improvements that will reduce

the number of emergency calls and reduce the

severity of any flooding that does occur,"

Easterbrook said in a written report to council.

Modifications

to City Lake and Pye Lake, so they can hold back

more water when storms occur, and channel

improvements to the creek itself are needed to

lower the flood plain, Easterbrook said, but the

projects are expensive, and the city hasn't

budgeted any money for them.

Council

members told Easterbrook to present the projects

in order of priority during the council's

planning retreat this fall so they can consider

them in budgeting for 2001 and beyond.

Federal

hazard mitigation programs may provide some grant

money for some of the projects, Easterbrook said.

Engineer: Regulations aren't

final answer

Fayetteville

City Council members want to know how 24 homes

wound up in the Ginger Cake Creek flood plain,

and they want to be sure such a thing doesn't

happen again.

"How

did these homes get built in the flood plain, and

does our ordinance sufficiently identify flood

plains so it doesn't happen again?"

Councilman Kenneth Steele wanted to know after

city engineer Don Easterbrook reported on the

results of a flood plain study recently.

The

creek enters the city near Hood Avenue and

Waterworks Road, and runs south through the west

side of town. Most of the affected homes are in

the Hood Avenue area, and the flooding is

exacerbated by tributaries entering Ginger Cake

from City Lake and Pye Lake, two small lakes in

the area.

When

the area was developed, Easterbrook said, it's

likely that flood plain maps in use at the time

weren't up to date. "The older maps showed a

much smaller flood plain," he said.

"The channel keeps getting more and more

overgrown," increasing the size of the flood

plain, he added.

Causes

are natural as well as man-made, he told The

Citizen this week. The flood plain changes

through natural evolution of the creek, but also

because of development.

Planners

and engineers have gotten better at spotting

potential problems, and city ordinances now

require better detention ponds for new

development to prevent flooding.

But

several homes are in danger of flooding because

they are beneath Pye Lake's dam, and that

situation is out of the purview of city

engineering regulations, Easterbrook said.

"There's

a threat if the dam should fail," he said,

but the catch 22 for regulators is that the owner

of land above the dam had a right to build the

dam, and owners of land below it have a right to

develop their property.

"It's

property rights versus protection," he said.

Those

conflicting rights have to be dealt with in the

political realm, not the regulatory one, he added .