Our Fate is Your Fate, an Ongoing Series


When the levees break:

Communities nationwide have repaired fewer than half of the 122 levees identified by the government almost two years ago as too poorly maintained to be reliable in major floods, according to Army Corps of Engineers data.

State and local governments were given a year to fix levees cited by the corps for "unacceptable" maintenance deficiencies in a February 2007 review that was part of a post-Hurricane Katrina crackdown. Only 45 have had necessary repairs, according to data provided in response to a USA TODAY request. The remaining unrepaired levees are spread across 18 states and Puerto Rico -- most in California and Washington.

People living behind the unrepaired levees "have every right to be concerned," said Tammy Conforti, head of the corps' levee safety program. "If (people) depend on that for flood risk reduction," she said of each unrepaired levee, "… those deficiencies need to be corrected."

In an effort to put pressure on state and local governments, the Army Corps has removed many of the unacceptable levees from the corps' inspection program, making them ineligible for federal rehabilitation funding if they are damaged by floodwaters. Property owners behind those levees also could be required to buy flood insurance if the Federal Emergency Management Agency finds that the maintenance problems leave them unprotected against a 100-year flood -- an event that has a 1% chance of occurring in any year.

What genuinely sad is that all it would take to fix this...is the will to do so. I'm constantly amazed, and not in a good way, re: the whining and moaning of particularly the conservative pundits about "government" and its supposed ills. Here we have specific instances of government having achieved quite a positive result: the initial levee construction and maintenance not only provided for public safety, but had the added benefit of growing the economy by improving property values. But because of deferred maintenance, i.e., no government (and no "private sector 'efficiency'"), a needless risk is taken AND property values are reduced. Wonderful.

Conservatives: they'll put your economy AND family at risk just so they can claim some fealty to "principles" that they'll happily violate anyway when they stand to gain...like with the bailout...or no-bid, guaranteed contracts, and so on.