Reassessing Flood Control Levees
For those of us in areas that don’t depend on them, levees probably aren’t something we spend much time thinking about. Nearly two years ago, however, the levee breaches in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina drew international attention to them—and the fact that they can fail, possibly because of age, poor construction, lack of maintenance, or storm conditions greater than they were designed to withstand.
The United States has literally thousands of miles of levees, some dating back well over a century, not all of them designed and built to equal standards. As the article on page 96 describes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now requires these levees to be certified to meet the 100-year flood standard if the areas they protect are to qualify for coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA’s regulations have actually been in place for years, but they’re being reemphasized in the wake of Katrina and also in connection with the agency’s map modernization program, an effort to upgrade flood maps. In addition, a 2003 court decision has set precedent for states to be held liable for levee breaks, even if the state government wasn’t responsible for building and maintaining the levees.
All of this presents a legal tangle and potentially huge expense for the state or local authority—that might mean you—responsible for certifying the condition of levees within its jurisdiction. The responsible flood control agency is likely to face pressure from home- and business owners living in the floodplain. Their insurance rates, and in some cases their ability to obtain flood insurance, is at stake. For insurance purposes FEMA now treats uncertified levees as though they don’t exist and considers the areas behind such levees prone to flooding. Property owners in these areas—especially those with federally backed mortgages—will be required to obtain flood insurance, a Catch-22 situation for many.
In some cases, certification will involve mainly verifying existing documentation, such as design documents and operations and maintenance plans; the article describes a database specially created to deal with this effort. In other instances testing and examination of the levees will be necessary.
As of January, the Army Corps of Engineers had identified more than 140 levees in various parts of the country that it says are at risk of failure in a major flood. Communities responsible for upgrading them have a year’s grace period to complete the work. Fixing less-than-ideal levees, though, as we’ve seen from the efforts to upgrade New Orleans’s levee system, is incredibly expensive. Upgrading any part of the infrastructure usually is, although much of it—sewer lines, storm drain systems, roads—can be done little by little over a period of years.
In California’s 2006 election, voters approved a proposition for $4.1 billion in bonds to finance disaster preparedness and flood prevention projects, including levees, and other states may follow similar strategies. However, although $3 billion were earmarked for repair and upgrade of the levees system in the Central Valley portion of California alone, the work was actually estimated to require two to three times that amount.
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Even for those in areas not protected by levees, the implications of the certification requirements—and of the conditions of the levees themselves—is likely to have a financial impact, as funding for other types of flood control and capital improvement projects may be diverted or as voters deem the levees to take precedence over other issues. The necessary work is costly, and the consequences of not doing it are potentially more so.
At almost any point in time, it’s unlikely that the issue of levees will be in the forefront. But when they do become important, they become critically important for everyone in the floodplain all at once—as in New Orleans.
May 2007
Reassessing Flood Control Levees
For those of us in areas that don’t depend on them, levees probably aren’t something we spend much time thinking about. Nearly two years ago, however, the levee breaches in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina drew international attention to them—and the fact that they can fail, possibly because of age, poor construction, lack of maintenance, or storm conditions greater than they were designed to withstand.
The United States has literally thousands of miles of levees, some dating back well over a century, not all of them designed and built to equal standards. As the article on page 96 describes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now requires these levees to be certified to meet the 100-year flood standard if the areas they protect are to qualify for coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA’s regulations have actually been in place for years, but they’re being reemphasized in the wake of Katrina and also in connection with the agency’s map modernization program, an effort to upgrade flood maps. In addition, a 2003 court decision has set precedent for states to be held liable for levee breaks, even if the state government wasn’t responsible for building and maintaining the levees.
All of this presents a legal tangle and potentially huge expense for the state or local authority—that might mean you—responsible for certifying the condition of levees within its jurisdiction. The responsible flood control agency is likely to face pressure from home- and business owners living in the floodplain. Their insurance rates, and in some cases their ability to obtain flood insurance, is at stake. For insurance purposes FEMA now treats uncertified levees as though they don’t exist and considers the areas behind such levees prone to flooding. Property owners in these areas—especially those with federally backed mortgages—will be required to obtain flood insurance, a Catch-22 situation for many.
In some cases, certification will involve mainly verifying existing documentation, such as design documents and operations and maintenance plans; the article describes a database specially created to deal with this effort. In other instances testing and examination of the levees will be necessary.
As of January, the Army Corps of Engineers had identified more than 140 levees in various parts of the country that it says are at risk of failure in a major flood. Communities responsible for upgrading them have a year’s grace period to complete the work. Fixing less-than-ideal levees, though, as we’ve seen from the efforts to upgrade New Orleans’s levee system, is incredibly expensive. Upgrading any part of the infrastructure usually is, although much of it—sewer lines, storm drain systems, roads—can be done little by little over a period of years.
In California’s 2006 election, voters approved a proposition for $4.1 billion in bonds to finance disaster preparedness and flood prevention projects, including levees, and other states may follow similar strategies. However, although $3 billion were earmarked for repair and upgrade of the levees system in the Central Valley portion of California alone, the work was actually estimated to require two to three times that amount.
Even for those in areas not protected by levees, the implications of the certification requirements—and of the conditions of the levees themselves—is likely to have a financial impact, as funding for other types of flood control and capital improvement projects may be diverted or as voters deem the levees to take precedence over other issues. The necessary work is costly, and the consequences of not doing it are potentially more so.
At almost any point in time, it’s unlikely that the issue of levees will be in the forefront. But when they do become important, they become critically important for everyone in the floodplain all at once—as in New Orleans.