Great Ape Trust marks recovery on one-year anniversary of record Floods of 2008

Des Moines, Iowa – June 17, 2009 – A year after floodwaters swamped Great Ape Trust, life at the southeast Des Moines scientific research institute is returning to normal – albeit a normality redefined by the lessons and realities of the Floods of 2008.

The flood never significantly disrupted the lives of the bonobo and orangutan residents, who climbed to and waited out the ordeal in the upper reaches of homes designed with their arboreal tendencies in mind. But for about two weeks beginning June 10, 2008, boats shuttled Great Ape Trust scientists, staff, supplies and food for the ape residents across a campus that had essentially been turned into a 230-acre lake.

Today, the most visible reminders of the flood are the sidewalks facing empty building pads where four administrative buildings once stood. The office suites were modular buildings that were never intended as permanent structures, but now, with a new flood plain defined, there’s a strong likelihood that they won’t be replaced at all, said Operations Director Jim Aipperspach.

The administrative suites were about three-fourths submerged in floodwaters and accounted for about $250,000 of the estimated $1.5 million in damages sustained by Great Ape Trust. Staff members who had offices in the suites are now working from private residences near The Trust or from an office building at 1515 Linden St. in downtown Des Moines.

Once a campus visitor has passed the empty building pads, reminders of the Floods of 2008 are few as Great Ape Trust continues what Aipperspach calls “a successful but prolonged recovery.”

“Physically, the campus looks as good as it ever has,” he said. “If you had not been on campus when the orangutan and bonobo homes were surrounded by water, you would not know there had been a flood.”

Physical infrastructure in the two laboratories, both of which took on about three feet of water during the floods, has been restored to pre-flood condition. In some cases, improvements have been made, such as the establishment of a communications room in the bonobo home that consolidates technology infrastructure that had been distributed across campus.

“The two laboratories are structurally solid,” Aipperspach said. “There are no problems with foundation, floors cracking or mold developing.”

The terrain of the campus has been restored, weeds deposited by the floods have been eradicated, and wildflowers have been replanted and are just beginning to bloom. In the past few weeks, the bonobo outdoor play yards and orangutan forest yard have reopened. Although most of the 2008 member tours were cancelled due to flooding, public visits resumed last month.

Though the two ape homes were built one foot above Floods of 1993 levels, floodwaters in that area of Des Moines rose significantly higher than that. As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Iowa Department of Transportation and other appropriate entities sort out effects of infrastructure improvements and other construction in the Des Moines River corridor since then, Great Ape Trust is reconsidering the practicalities of building on campus, which is part of the Lake Red Rock flood storage area.

Though it’s unlikely additional construction will occur at the current location, Great Ape Trust is not abandoning the campus or its long-term goals to expand the research program to include chimpanzees and gorillas.

“We are in conversations with people in our community with mutual interests about the possibility of building additional facilities elsewhere – and, of course, one of those possibilities is Blank Park Zoo,” Aipperspach said. “Doing so is consistent with Ted Townsend’s vision when he founded Great Ape Trust, and his interest in opportunities for the organization to expand and grow with other partners and organizations with common interests – and land above the flood plain.”

“We are grateful to the city of Des Moines for approximately 140 acres and to MidAmerican Energy Co. for the approximately 90 acres of land made available to us. Their generosity has made it possible for us to establish Great Ape Trust in southeast Des Moines, and we went into this with our eyes wide open: It’s a beautiful campus in a flood plain, and we understand Mother Nature at times takes control.”

Aipperspach said the Floods of 2008 provided valuable lessons on how to plan for and respond to similar emergencies in the future. “We have a better sense of flood levels and what we need to do to stabilize and maintain our buildings through a combination of sandbagging and pumping water in the future,” Aipperspach said. “We will be better able to work our way through these issues than we were on an emergency basis in 2008.”

Aipperspach also said the flood emergency of a year ago brought out the best in Great Ape Trust’s approximately 35 employees. “Each of us remember vividly what we were doing one year ago as the Flood of 2008 arrived at Great Ape Trust,” he said, “and we recall the tremendous professional, positive we-can-survive attitude with which we approached this significant challenge.