By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
The Northfield City Council heard a report on Tuesday regarding the city’s long-term plan for handling flooding downtown. The process started in 2020, when the city received a grant from FEMA to conduct a flooding study of the river, which updated future models of flooding and determined what infrastructure would be needed to prevent flooding. Previous work had already been done downtown, including raising the transformers above the flooding plan and flood-proofing the Fire Department.
Public Works Director and City Engineer David Bennett stated that the city is now working to identify funding for each project:
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“Once those evaluations were established, it really went into more of the cost analysis and looked at improvements and the damages at properties and looked at benefit-cost analysis. And really, that was done to determine eligibility from FEMA to see if certain projects would qualify for federal or state assistance from a grant perspective.” – David Bennett, the Northfield City Engineer/Public Works Director at the 9/9/2025 City Council Meeting
Bennett noted the positive impact the study had on collecting additional support:
“So really almost $1,000,000 in grants related to stormwater improvements here that we’ve secured through some of these studies.”– David Bennett, the Northfield City Engineer/Public Works Director at the 9/9/2025 City Council Meeting
Three projects were identified as part of the study:
- The West Bank Floodwall (near Frogz)
- Floodproofing Bridge Square (primarily Carlson Capital Management)
- And several projects related to Carleton College’s campus.
While some grant options were promising, the council was asked whether any projects would like to proceed with design work to expedite construction, or if the city should continue searching for additional funding/grants.
The Council generally agreed to move forward with the West Bank’s Floodwall, with support from the property owners. Here’s Councilor Brad Ness:
“I know the West Wall between the 2nd and 4th has been talked about for a long time. And again, like Councillor Soukup said, if the design helps get the grant, do it. It would certainly be nice to see the money first, but I’m not sure it’s going to work that way. And I think Carleton should be involved with protecting their structures.” – Brad Ness, Northfield City Councilor, at the 9/9/2025 City Council Meeting
Going forward, city staff will work on preliminary designs of the project for future approval next year.
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