ORRICK, Mo. (DTN) -- As farmer Tom Waters examines what happened with flooding in 2011, the projected repair costs don't just highlight the strength of last year's flood, but the lack of investment in levee and flood-control projects over the past several decades.

"We have been stalled for 30 years and haven't spent any more on levees," said Waters, who farms along the Missouri River bottom east of Liberty, Mo., and Kansas City.

It will take more than $2 billion to rebuild all of the flood-control levees damaged nationally by this year's flooding, according to Corps of Engineers' estimates. That includes $120 million to rebuild the levee around Hamburg, Iowa, and $88 million to repair the levee protecting Atchison County, Mo., two of the bigger breaching points along the Missouri River.

There is a sense of urgency in flooded communities and among farmers that these projects need to be accelerated. They can't wait six to eight months to go through the Corps' normal process for repairs.

Waters, who is chairman of the Missouri River Levee and Drainage District Association, has stepped up pressure since this year's flooding began. He will testify again Wednesday at a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing looking at the 2011 flooding on the Missouri River and the Corps operational plans for the future. Overall, Waters said the country has been neglectful of its river infrastructure and emphasis should go beyond simple repairs, but also upgrading levee protections.

"These projects are needed and what a better time to put people to work than when the economy needs it," Waters said.

The heart of the problem is the Corps of Engineers budget, Waters said. He particularly became upset when he learned about the slow pace and lack of levee rebuilding being considered in some areas flooded this year. Waters lashed out at the Corps last month for pushing more wetland options and "dusting off" the proposed Missouri River plan developed by the Clinton administration after the 1993 flood.

"Sir, just flying over Holt and Atchison counties (Mo.) is not the same as being there," Waters said at a meeting held in Denver, which also drew Waters' ire as a hearing location nowhere near the Missouri River. "I encourage you to climb down out of the helicopter and put your boots on the ground. You need to see the stress in the people's faces and hear the concern and worry in their voices."

When he testified, Waters reminded the Corps of Engineers' Northwest commander that Congress determines if levees are rebuilt, not the Corps.

Time in rebuilding is already critical. Waters notes it generally takes the Corps a minimum of 220 days to rebuild a breached levee. Waters has documented that the Corps must take 107 separate steps to complete a levee repair.

The lack of protection from unrepaired levees costs producers through higher crop-insurance premiums, often tripling. USDA's Risk Management Agency requires levees to be rebuilt back to protection levels prior to flooding or cropland premiums go to the highest levels in the county. Waters and other farmers raised that point earlier this month when they held a roundtable with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

Undoubtedly, without accelerated repairs a lot of farmers will face skyrocketing insurance costs.

This year's flooding has put a spotlight back on the levees and their capabilities. On average, the Missouri River channels 24.8 million acre feet of water runoff over the entire year. Last summer, the river carried 24.3 million acre feet in May and June alone. All told, the river saw 61 million acre feet of water throughout the year. Releases at the Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota topped 160,000 cubic feet per second. The prior record of releases from that dam had been 70,000 cfs.

Rains and floods in the spring of 2012 are not considered likely to hit 2011 levels, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency did state earlier this month there is a high probability of flooding in the Missouri River basin in 2012. The La Nina conditions that existed this year will occur again. As DTN reported on NOAA's forecast, research on La Nina shows generally colder-than-normal winters in the Upper Missouri River valley areas of the Dakotas and Montana, and some regions having wetter than normal conditions.

The difference between now and last year is that most of the levees are breeched or stressed.

Throughout the flooding, critics of Corps' funding and priorities highlighted that Congress gave the agency $78 million in 2011 for wildlife studies and restoration, while Missouri River operations received only $6 million.

"We've been throwing nickels and dimes into levees and flood protection, and spending millions on birds and fish," Waters said.

Missouri's two senators, Republican Roy Blount and Democrat Claire McCaskill, also introduced amendments to an appropriations bill for the Army Corps of Engineers that would require the Corps to focus on rebuilding levees, locks and dams on both the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers. Further, funding would require the Corps to rebuild levees back to their prior levels of protection before next spring.

The bill would effectively cut the red tape. Studies on history or environmental and endangered species impacts would be waived to allow quicker reconstruction.

"This bill would allow the Corps to bypass some of those requirements," Waters said. "These projects could begin on a much faster timetable."

In the House, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, has been leading similar efforts, including legislation to require the Corps of Engineers to recalculate storage levels in the federal reservoirs on the Missouri. Further, King and nine other lawmakers wrote House appropriators this week asking them to press the Corps to make levee rebuilding a priority over wildlife and environmental concerns.

"Over the last decade, we have watched as the Corps' spending on environmental concerns has exploded, while, at the same time, its funding of flood prevention work has dwindled," King said. "This year's flooding wreaked havoc on levees and other infrastructure up and down the river ... And right now, with whole communities unable to begin the rebuilding process and farmers up and down the river facing triple flood insurance premiums in the absence of repaired levees, the highest priority for the use of federal funds in the Missouri River basin is to get the levees and other infrastructure rebuilt to their pre-flood specifications."

A great deal of levee development along the Missouri River began by private farmers in the early half of the 1900s who then later joined forces and formed private levee district.

"We have got a big levee that protects me and it was basically because one guy built it in the late '60s and early '70s," Waters said.

Major federal levee construction happened before the early 1970s, much like the Missouri River dam system from Fort Peck, Mont., to Gavins Point, S.D., was developed from the 1940s to 1960s. There has been little new done to the river infrastructure since then. Meanwhile, all other development continued, creating sheets of asphalt where there were once woods, crops or pasture.

"What I see happening in the last 20 to 30 years is we haven't done anything to compensate for the development, not just in the flood plain but everywhere," Waters said.

So think of all of those areas where water hits the roofs, or parking lots, runs into stormwater drainage or creeks, straight to tributaries of the Missouri River. Simple saturation ability has been lost in some areas, Waters said.

"Water is getting to the river faster, and there is more of it," he said. "We haven't done anything to compensate for that with our levees and our flood-control structures."

Waters also doesn't care for the Corps and others who want to take river bottom land and convert it from crop production to the Conservation Reserve Program or wetlands restoration. That too would be a problem with setting back, or pushing back the current levees and yielding more to the river.

"Even if we took everything out of the Missouri River floodplain, you still have some of the best soils in the world along the floodplain. That's worth protecting," Waters said.

Chris Clayton can be reached at chris.clayton@telventdtn.com

(CZSK)

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