DES MOINES, Iowa | Birdland residents are frustrated that they could once again be facing the specter of flooded homes, 17 years after discussions began on building a new levee to protect their small Des Moines neighborhood.
A levee that already exists failed in 1993 and 2008, causing about 135 homes and businesses to be engulfed by the Des Moines River. Locals have voiced concern that the slow pace of efforts to build a new barricade could irrevocably damage the community, driving away residents and investment.
“I’m very, very upset,” said Andrew Krantz of Eagle Iron Works. “They want industry here. They want business, they want people here. How do you build this? This is not the way.”
Bill Heinold, a flood risk management coordinator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said it took five years to win congressional approval of a corps feasibility study for the new levee, that authorization for construction didn’t land until 2007, and it took another two years for the funding to be approved.
He said he understood why residents in the 200-home neighborhood were annoyed.
“I would be too if I were them,” he said. “I wish it were faster. If I had the power to make it faster, I would.”
“It literally does take an act of Congress for us to be able to build a levee like this,” Mr. Heinold said.
For resident Larry Clark, the delays are inexcusable.
“There is quite a bit of frustration,” Mr. Clark said Wednesday. “It takes 17 years to fix a levee? C’mon.”
Construction of the levee had been slated to start in June, but was delayed because of weeks of torrential rain.
“We recommended that the contractor not start that construction, of course, because for him to punch a hole in the levee right now and start reconstructing it … that would be suicide,” Mr. Heinold said.
He said construction would have to wait until the river retreated - anytime from mid-July to August. No rain is forecast through Saturday.
Sunny and dry weather this week has provided some relief, and prompted the corps to delay a planned release of water over a spillway at Saylorville Lake into the Des Moines River that flows through the city’s downtown.
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