Damage is estimated at about $6.62 million to city facilities and to a retaining wall at the State Route 169 bridge near the city-owned Maplewood Golf Course from the major flooding of the Cedar River earlier this month.

The figure is about $3.5 million less than originally estimated and reported to the Renton City Council because the state will only have to repair and not replace the retaining wall at the bridge, according to the state.

The level of the Cedar rose precipitously on Jan. 7 and 8 when a Pineapple Express out of the Pacific Ocean brought relatively warm temperatures and heavy rainfall to Western Washington, melting a massive snowpack from an earlier storm in the mountains.

The river’s level in downtown Renton, reached 9,090 cubic feet per second on Jan. 8, slightly below the flow from the flood of November 1990. The figures are revised from what has been reported initially.

The 1990 storm caused widespread damage throughout the Renton area, including covering much of the Renton Municipal Airport and flooding the basement of what was then City Hall, the 200 Mill Building.

Although similar in superlatives, the damage from the Flood of 2009 wasn’t as widespread as in 1990.

In the intervening years, the city had dredged the lower Cedar to increase its carrying capacity and other flood-control projects have been completed. One of those projects was a wall protecting the 200 Mill Building.

Still, this year’s damage ran into the millions of dollars.

The vast majority of the damage – $6.2 million – is to city parks, including the golf course, Ron Regis Park and the Cedar River Trail, and to water-control facilities, such as the Elliott salmon-spawning channel.

The city will seek reimbursement for these expenses from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Less definite was who would be financially responsible for repairs to a retaining wall at the State Route 169 bridge over the Cedar near the city’s golf course. The wall was undermined by the river’s overflow and some of the concrete panels supporting the bridge sank.

One lane on the bridge inbound to downtown Renton was closed, causing huge backups on the highway during commutes. Repair work is now under way and the lane could reopen by late next week.

In talks with the state Department of Transportation, the City of Renton had agreed to apply for reimbursement for repairs to the bridge. But that’s all, according to Gregg Zimmerman, the city’s public works director.

“That is not a commitment that the city will pay for it,” Zimmerman said of the cost of the repair.

The city agreed to apply with the Federal Highway Administration, which would provide the reimbursement, as a way to keep the repair process moving forward while both sides continued talking about responsibility for bridge repairs.

At the heart of the disagreement is whether the retaining wall next to the bridge is really a replacement for an embankment or slope that would have supported the bridge. The state says the wall is replacement for an embankment, making it the city’s responsibility; the city says a wall is a wall, making it the state’s maintenance responsibility.

In an email exchange with a state transportation officials, Hahn wrote that “Renton would have opposed SR 169 plans that would have ‘intruded’ onto its property, the golf course, by specifying a fill slope.”

The City Council was briefed Jan. 26 on the flood damage and the ongoing discussions with the state over the SR 169 repairs.

Council member Don Persson commented he “can’t fathom” why the city would pay for repairs when it’s a state bridge.