A City engineer from Nevada honored for his work in flood control
ooch, a civil engineer in the City of Sparks' Public Works Department, spent hundreds of hours in spearheading the effort to earn Federal Emergency Management Agency accreditation for flood controls in the marina area, an effort that saved homeowners thousands of dollars in mandatory flood
insurance costs and helped avoid potentially crippling costs for the Legends at Sparks Marina project.
"Economically, what this means to the city is huge," Mayor Geno Martini said in presenting Gooch an Employee Award for Outstanding Service at Monday's city council meeting.
In May 2007, FEMA told the city it was redrawing its flood zone maps and planned to include the marina area in a flood hazard area unless Interstate 80 could be designated as a levee. The directive caught the city by surprise because it had installed a system of storm drain culverts with back-flow prevention after the New Year's flood of 1997.
