Ron Whitehead, the county's public works director, said more money is needed before work can even be started on several mitigating projects along the Virgin and Santa Clara rivers.

"We're concerned about the potential for sewage to be put back into the river flow," said Whitehead, pointing out that sewer lagoons for Enterprise, Springdale and Rockville are vulnerable and need to be protected from any potentially damaging floodwaters. "I'm not saying it's perilous, but we need to get the work done so (the sewer lagoons) don't open up. If they should breach, that's 18 to 20 surface acres of sewage coming down the river."

Santa Clara's main sewer line was destroyed during January's floods and the city is just now able to begin laying new pipelines. For the past few months, Santa Clara has been pumping its sewage out of several main manholes and transporting it to a wastewater treatment plant.

A main irrigation line maintained by the Washington County Water Conservancy District was also destroyed during January's floods. In order to provide water this summer to irrigation users, that pipeline also must be replaced as quickly as possible.

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E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com