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Editorial
Without better funding, levees are ticking time bombs

Our View: Levee systems need proper funding. Without enough money for upkeep and repairs, the areas near the Mississippi River are in a dangerous and scary situation.

Much of Southern Illinois sits next to the powerful Mississippi River. Anyone who was around in 1993, saw the awesome, raw power of that river and the flooding damages.

Images of homes being washed away and thousands of people carrying sandbags to prevent more damage are burned in many people's memories. Lives lost in The Great Flood will be remembered forever.

Here we are 17 years later, and we are at risk for something of that magnitude to happen again. Deeply at risk. It's only a question of when it will happen, unless we dramatically upgrade our levees.

As reported by Tom Barker in the July 24 issue of The Southern Illinoisan, the levee systems in Illinois are grossly underfunded. For instance, the Clear Creek District, which protects 18,000 acres in Union County, gets only $14,000 of tax funding. There is already work in need of being done that would cost more the half a million dollars.

"We're scared to death that if we get another '93 that the levees might not hold," said Mitchel McLane, commissioner for the district. "We're afraid we're going to have a major catastrophe, and it's not if; it's when."

Those are frightening words.

It's chilling to think we are sitting next to one of the world's largest rivers - one of Mother Nature's most powerful and deadly forces - and are protected by deteriorating structures that were built in the 1940s and 1950s and intended to provide 50 years of security. Levee systems need proper funding to be able to protect the people and areas they were set up protect.

Fortunately, most of the soil structures are holding up well. The biggest problem facing many levee systems lies in the piping and gate systems within the levees. All it takes is one bad pipe to cause a major blowout.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is faced with a massive undertaking when it comes to inspecting and judging the strength and durability of our levees. There are ways to get extra funding to rebuild levee systems now, but they include lots of red tape and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get started. It's also hard to get funding for levees that aren't protecting large amounts of people or multi-billion dollar industry.

But as McLane pointed out, a flood as big as '93s would cover the Illinois 3 corridor. It would close highways, railroads, the Cape Girardeau bridge, destroy homes, farms, equipment, kill animals and have the capability to take lives. A flood that large could destroy entire towns. It might decimate Cairo, Grand Tower, East Cape Girardeau and all points between the communities.

Even if the death toll wouldn't be astounding, many lives would be changed forever. New construction isn't allowed in flood plains, thus if someone's home was destroyed they would have to rebuild in a whole new area.

The Great Flood of 1993 affected nine states, caused $15 billion dollars worth of damage and was responsible for 50 deaths. Even after a catastrophe of that scale, some levees are ticking time bombs, and without proper funding, they are going to blow.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs more tax funding to do its job when it comes to inspecting and fixing levees. There is too much at stake to let the levees sit in such disrepair. We shouldn't have to endure another Great Flood to get the money required to keep people safe.

This is a call to action for all of Southern Illinois and especially to our region's elected officials in Washington D.C., U.S. Reps. Jerry Costello and John Shimkus and U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Roland Burris. Gentlemen, what is your plan to avoid another New Orleans-like levee failure and devastating flood? Have you noticed our news coverage of this impending disaster and scheduled public hearings in the regions and met with the Corps of Engineers? Are there plans for a task force to address the problem?

Since it's so difficult to get levee restoration funding through the normal channels, we can't help but think there must be some way to use some of the federal stimulus money for renovation work on the levee systems. It would create jobs and build confidence that we can avoid a repeat of 1993 or a scaled-down version of the Hurricane Katrina flood that submerged New Orleans. The money we spend now would be fraction of the expenses we would face with a flood.