USA: 10 failed levees in Midwest flood zone were not inspected by federal government
By Peggy Lowe
The 11 levees that failed last week during catastrophic flooding along the Missouri River were maintained by local associations or private owners, with just one inspected by the Army Corps of Engineers this year, KCUR and APM Reports has found.
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The Corps does two types of inspections on federal and non-federal levees, according to its website. Routine inspections are “typically conducted each year” on levees under its safety program, the site says. Periodic inspections are done every five years, led by a professional engineer. There are three inspection ratings, the site says: acceptable, minimally acceptable and unacceptable.
The seven Corps' inspections of last week's breached or overtopped levees date back to 2010 and 2012, according to the National Levee Database. Two of the levees don’t fall under the Corps’ authority during disaster responses.
Much of the decision-making for the smaller levees is left up to the district directors. But Bob Criss, an emeritus professor of hydrogeology at Washington University in St. Louis, blames the Corps for the flooding. The agency has reshaped a historically shallow, multi-channel, wide river into a slim channel that runs too high and floods too easily, “like a piece of spaghetti on a plate,” he said.
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If anything is to blame, [Tom Waters, chair of the Missouri Levee and Drainage District Association,] said, it’s the failure to improve the U.S. flood control infrastructure. When the levees fail, districts are required to repair to the pre-flood condition, some of which date back to the 1950s, he said.
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