YOU ARE INVITED TO THE NEXT
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
NORTH CAROLINA SECTION
EASTERN BRANCH
LUNCHEON
In-Person: RSVP Online Now
Virtual: RSVP Online Now
NOTICE: This meeting is offered in-person and virtually. See below for details.
In-person registration closes at midnight on Monday, September 15, 2025. Virtual registration is open until the day of the event.
Speaker: Alicia Lanier, PE
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025
Topic: Fayetteville NC Watershed Program – Where we’ve been and where we’re going!
Time: 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Summary: The combination of pluvial and fluvial flooding in the rapidly developing city of Fayetteville creates many challenges in flood mitigation, during extreme events as well as smaller more frequent rainfall events. In 2019 city leaders embarked on an ambitious city-wide Watershed Master Plan program to better understand the magnitude and severity of stormwater flooding across the city and proactively develop mitigation projects. City leaders understood that a comprehensive evaluation would support resiliency by providing a pool of prioritized projects for both short- and long-term implementation and leverage resources. This future-forward thinking has proven invaluable, because the city is now equipped with better information about project needs in critical areas, and the detailed studies have been crucial in securing grants. These grant awards essentially offset program costs to date.
The program foundation was established over four years and included a rebuild of the stormwater geodatabase, a city-wide high priority area stormwater asset field survey, guidance for modeling and data visualization, parallel modeling efforts, and methods for prioritizing projects. Master plans for eight of the 15 watersheds have been completed with twenty flood mitigation projects under various phases of design or construction. Other aspects of this comprehensive program are also being developed, including the installation of stream and precipitation gages, plans for future model updates, strategies for updating the GDB, comprehensive Strategic Planning, stormwater asset survey for remainder of city, early flood warning system, and more.
Success of the program is due to the unwavering support by city leaders and the community, continuous collaboration among city and consultant team members and city leaders, and the courage to consider unique opportunities at a scale beyond the typical flood mitigation projects of the past. The program has been fortunate to have a strong Sponsor in our Director who helped us all understand the value of ‘Going Big’.
Bio: Alicia Lanier received her undergrad and graduate degrees from NCSU, as a first-generation university student. She is a Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society member, and holds PE licenses in NC, CA, and OR. Alicia’s career took her from NCSU Extension Specialist (with the Water Quality Group) to consulting for a large water resources firm in CA and OR (CH2M HiLL now Jacobs), to consulting under her own shingle in Portland Oregon, and Miami Florida for many years. Alicia found her way back to Clarkton, NC, in 2019, where she grew up driving a tractor at 6-years old on their small share-cropper’s tobacco farm. She has served for the last 5 years as the Program Manager for the City of Fayetteville Watershed Master Plan Program. Alicia has been instrumental in bringing adaptive project management concepts to the City’s Watershed Master Plan program. This program was awarded the James Lee Witt Local Award for Excellence in Floodplain Management in 2024. The program has also been ingested into the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit as well as the state of NC Resilience Exchange. The program has earned the trust of the council and community by honoring commitments, being transparent, and providing continuous communication.
Location: This luncheon will be held at the beautiful NC State University Club at 4200 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27606. You can contact the NC University Club at (919) 828-0308 if you need assistance locating their establishment.
We are also offering a virtual-only option. Instructions and a link to the virtual meeting (via Zoom) will been sent to the registered participants. If you do not receive the login information, please contact us. You will have the option to install software for a better viewing experience, but the video will otherwise play in a standard web browser. You will not need to create an account.
Fees:
$25 for ASCE Members
$30 for Non-ASCE Members and Guests
$10 for ASCE Life Members and Unemployed ASCE Members.
$10 for Virtual Only
Free for Students
Credit cards are accepted for pre-registration but not at the door. There is a Venmo payment option for pre-registration. If you are paying at the door, please bring cash or a check made out to "ASCE NC Eastern Branch".
RSVP: Our online system handles all registrations and payments. You can register and pay for the event online using your credit card. Even if you don't want to pay online, please use the online system to register. There are no additional fees, accounts, or passwords to remember. The online system will also allow you to specify if you prefer a vegetarian meal. Upon arrival at the event, just check-in at the registration table using your name.
We understand your schedule may change and you might not be able to make it to the event. Cancellations with refunds can be honored up until four days prior to the event by sending an email. If you are neither able to attend nor cancel in time, you may send a replacement.
PDH: To help Professional Engineers in attendance acquire 15 Professional Development Hour (PDH) units per license renewal period in accordance with 21 NCAC 56.1703, a one hour PDH certificate will be emailed to registered participants after the presentation.