Editorial: Levees—To Build Or Not, That Is The Question

Not since a little Dutch boy put his finger in a hole in the dike (or so the story goes) have we heard so much about levees. Some people don’t want them. Others want bigger and better ones.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has concluded that constructing bigger and stronger levees along the Illinois and Upper Mississippi rivers to protect vast tracts of agricultural land is not justified. The ones we have do pretty well, they say.

When any prudent person considers a project that requires financial expenditures, it’s prudent to count the cost. The Corps is correct in doing so.

The need to protect people and things by building levees results from our insatiable appetite to build where we shouldn’t. If we did not insist on building where we shouldn’t, the need to build bigger and stronger would not exist.

If folks had never populated Florida, the passage of hurricanes would mean, literally, nothing there. If people didn’t live right on the seashore, they wouldn’t constantly be in danger. If we didn’t plant or live or build in the flood plain, there would be no need for bigger levees.

This is easy to say, but we began making imprudent decisions centuries ago. The fish bowl they call New Orleans only was called that in later years. Early settlers found the place to their liking, so they settled, Gulf and storms be damned! They would build levees to solve the problem. And they did, starting back 300 years ago. The area mushroomed over the years, the levee system expanded helter-skelter, and now we have a gosh-awful mess.

It is not possible to undo all the bad decisions of the past. We have to deal with things as they are now. A major issue is who gets stuck with the bill. That brings us to the question of whether or not the taxpayer should forever be burdened with protecting people who do not count the cost. On the other hand, some people have counted the cost but know the government will pick up the tab.

We don’t know if bickering over Missouri River water management and federally enforced man-made flooding is a factor in this or not. Readers will recall the Corps must produce floods on the Missouri to help endangered species. The federal government announced that if man-made floods destroy crops, federal crop insurance would not apply.

Has the proposal to build bigger and stronger levees evolved out of the fear that federal crop insurance will not cover crops destroyed by federally ordered floods? If farmers can’t depend on crop insurance, they have to depend on levee protection, eat the losses or, Heaven forbid, stop farming in the flood plain.

We are too far along to issue an edict to stop farming in the flood plain. The economic impact would be huge. We must consider, too, that not only were farmers imprudent by seeding in vulnerable areas, mankind has always built, unwisely, in the flood plains. Some always insist on pitching their tents in the face of danger.

The cost to protect life and limb of all who chose and still choose to live dangerously, and to protect their structures and their crops is really getting out of hand. We see no sound reason, for example, to rebuild New Orleans exactly as it was—not if we count the cost. We’d just be setting the stage for a second visit by Katrina. The people of New Orleans and Florida, farmers who plant in the flood plain, and people everywhere who build too close to water have been living dangerously for a long time. Many have gotten away with it. Unfortunately, many have not.

Living with this danger is a two-sided coin. For farmers it can mean lush crops, sometimes even two a season. For residents, it offers beautiful views and recreation. It is economically beneficial for some businesses to operate along waterways. The very act of operating in the flood plain has produced millionaires. For some, like the towing industry and its relatives, it is essential. That is the one side. The other side is that danger always lurks around the corner. Should these people not have counted the cost and put aside a little something to cover themselves in the face of disaster? Why should taxpayers have to pay for their imprudence?

One criticism of the Corps’ conclusion came from Dave McMurray, vice-chairman of the Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers Association. He faults government computer models and says “federal cost-benefit formulas fail to take into account such things as the regional importance of an asset or the potential future uses of…property if it were shielded from flooding.” That sounds remotely like the critic who said if we protect a puddle of water in a midwestern prairie long enough, one day a duck will land there—maybe. And then there is always the criticism that building levees moves the problem somewhere else.

The entire existence of the flood control system on those three rivers is based on government concern for the economics involved when flood-disaster strikes. How can anyone imply that the Corps doesn’t care?

The Corps has concluded that it would cost $8 billion to protect the area against a 500-year flood and $3.7 billion to protect it against a 100-year flood. The agency concludes that the current flood control system that protects nearly 1,100 river miles north of Cairo generally holds its own most of the time. The existing system saves billions in flood losses when such events do occur.

The Corps is one government agency that spends more time than any other counting costs and evaluating the worth, or lack of it, when it comes to project proposals. At any rate, it is Congress that will make the final decision.

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