City searching for Valley Creek cash

Port Washington officials are on the hunt for money — as much as $20 million — to rehabilitate Valley Creek, which runs through Port Washington’s east side and stretches from the city’s far north border to the lakefront at Veterans Park.

The Common Council recently agreed to apply for a $365,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Sustain Our Great Lakes program and a $5 million grant from the foundation’s National Coastal Resiliency Fund to finance the project.

Melissa Curran of Stantec, the city’s consultant for the project, told the Board of Public Works earlier in the month that she is hopeful the city will receive the $5 million grant, noting the city was invited to apply for it. The foundation, she noted, has funded a number of aspects of the project. 

and wants to see it implemented.

“We’re very hopeful we will get it,” she said.

But aldermen expressed some concern about the project — not about its goals but about the amount of funding it will require.

“I need more information,” Ald. Deb Postl said. “I have yet to see a timeline, a final cost.”

Mayor Ted Neitzke praised the project, saying, “We’ve already seen significant improvements (to the waterway),” but he questioned the cost to the city, especially since the grants being sought would require matching funds.

Some of those funds would come from the tax incremental financing district established for the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse Campus, since the creek originates there, as well as a $2.4 million donation from Vantage.

“I’m struggling with the volume of city matches (from the TIF district),” Neitzke said. “We want to close (the TIF) as soon as possible.”

The city has the option of turning down grants if it can’t meet the match, officials said.

And the project can be done in increments, Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven said, adding work “can easily be broken into little bits,” tailored to the available funding.

Ald. Dan Benning said aldermen need to look at not just the project costs and where the money is coming from but also the city’s capital improvement project schedule.

“Where does this fall in the list of priorities?” he asked, noting the city is facing a long list of expensive projects.

The Valley Creek project will help eliminate the risk of flooding at the water plant, one of the city’s major assets, Ald. Mike Gasper said.

He noted that the project is still being designed, with plans that are only 60% complete, and costs that are still being determined.

“There are still some tweaks to be done around the edges,” Gasper said, adding that not all the matching funds will come from the TIF district.

The General Government and Finance Committee is expected to get a more detailed look at the project when it meets on July 7.

The city has been working on the Valley Creek project since a 2018 flood caused significant damage to Veterans Park and the nearby Lighthouse Condominiums.

Not only does the city want to prevent the flooding that has plagued the area, it also wants to return the creek to a more natural state and in the process create a home for wildlife as well as increase public access to the waterway.

But the issues facing Valley Creek are many — erosion, downcutting of the channel, declining water quality, exposed utility pipes and invasive species.

The Valley Creek project would use nature-based solutions to prevent degradation, protect critical infrastructure, reduce flooding risk and restore local habitats from an area just north of Birchwood Hills Nature Preserve on the city’s north side to Lake Michigan.

It includes everything from removing invasive species to restoring the banks of the creek and replacing some culverts with bridges.

The city also recently agreed to eliminate the box culvert just north of the Van Ells-Schanen American Legion Hall, instead sending the creek over land on the north side of the hall, through a culvert under Lake Street and then above ground through Veterans Park to the lake.

Much of the work for the Valley Creek project so far has been paid for with grants, including a $135,000 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal program grant, a $45,000 grant from the American Bird Conservancy-National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Sustain Our Great Lakes Program and $45,000 from the American Bird Conservancy-U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

Pending grants include two $375,000 grants from the Sustain Our Great Lakes Program, which would require $465,000 in matching funds, a $150,000 grant from the Department of Natural Resources Urban Nonpoint Source and Stormwater Program, which would require a $150,000 match, a $5,000 Fish and Wildlife Foundation Coastal Resilience Fund grant that would require a $5,000 match and a $218,393 grant from the DNR’s Targeted Runoff Management program that would require a $93,600 match.

“We’re constantly working on grant funding,” Curran said.