InMaricopa The Santa Cruz Wash is seen across Murphy Road, south of the City Center site. Photo by Bob McGovern The North Santa Cruz Wash floodplain is a significant impediment to economic development on the east side of Maricopa. But a mitigation project to remove about 11 square miles of land surrounding the city complex on White and Parker Road from the floodplain is underway. Completing the project, with channels, levees, a 110-acre retention pond and other infrastructure, will cost about $60 million, according to city manager Rick Horst. The remediation project would serve to replace the mile-wide-or-wider wash with a 300-foot-wide, deep channel, city officials have said.