Ruekert & Mielke, Inc., has won a State Finalist Award in the Engineering Excellence Award Competition, sponsored by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin, for the firm’s work on a flood mitigation project for the Village of Thiensville. This project was funded by a $1.7 million Pre-Disaster Flood Mitigation grant and has reduced the chronic flooding of Pigeon Creek. Before the flood mitigation project, the Village experienced six major floods since 1973. Over the course of this time period, many businesses and residential structures sustained damages that exceeded $6 million. Four out of the six floods were so severe that the main street and a number of businesses closed and a Presidential Disaster was declared. A solution to Thiensville’s historic flooding problem was identified over 25 years ago by Ruekert/Mielke’s engineers. However, given the Village’s small size and tax base, the Village did not have the funds to complete the project. In 2006, Ruekert/Mielke came to their rescue, assisting the Village in applying for and successfully obtaining a Pre-disaster Mitigation Competitive Grant totaling $1.7 million. The Village was ecstatic as the grant would pay for over half of the flood mitigation project needed to alleviate destructive flooding and enhance downtown redevelopment in the future.
The goal of the project was not only to control chronic flooding of Pigeon Creek, but to restore a natural stream process, improve water quality, enhance aesthetics of the central Village area and return the urbanized channel to a naturalized environment. The project was complex and involved overcoming public objections as well as some intense easement negotiations. In order to reduce the flood stage, Ruekert/Mielke engineers designed a project that: (1) incorporated green concepts, (2) improved and “naturalized” the low-flow channel to allow for fish passage, (3) widened the creek and removed manmade obstructions to the flow, (4) incorporated a site to store excess flow that reduces flood flows by 5%, (5) restored creek habitat and (6) prevented erosion. Through the increase of the hydraulic conveyance capacity of the channel, flood damage potential has been reduced. The fact that the chance of downtown Thiensville flooding has been reduced will allow the City of Mequon and the Village of Thiensville to continue their partnership in completing their Town Center plan. The Town Center plan is being developed in order to establish downtown Thiensville as the “heart” of both communities.