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Local
Money Losers
Non-Federal Levee Repairs $n/a
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"Many
instances exist where levee repairs by one or more federal agencies
were considered inappropriate only to be done later by another
federal agency."
Army Corps of Engineers Floodplain Management Assessment
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Since
1941, after a series of floods in the 1930s, a growing number
of federal agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
the Department of Agriculture, Federal Emergency Management Agency,
Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Economic Development
Administration, have paid to repair local agricultural levees
built by levee districts. Farmers operate local levee districts
(quasi-public taxing districts) to pay for the construction and
maintenance of levees. Typically, federal agencies pay 75 to
80 percent of the cost of repairing these non-federal levees
after floods. Levee districts often cover their share of the
cost of repairs with "in-kind" contributions. Some
federal agencies lowered local cost-sharing responsibilities
to just 10 percent during the Great Flood of 1993.
Green
Scissors Proposal
End federal cost sharing for the repair of non-federal levees.
Savings for federal taxpayers would be significant but difficult
to determine because of the random nature of flooding.
Program
Hurts Taxpayers
These
outdated programs put federal taxpayers at financial risk by
encouraging hazardous development in flood-prone areas.
In many cases, federal agencies, repair levees that are not properly
maintained and do not qualify for federal assistance.
Federal agencies have repaired several levees more than ten times
since taxpayers were originally forced to shoulder the cost of
levee repairs in 1941. The levee protecting
the Hunt and Lima Lake Levee Districts from the Mississippi,
for example, has been repaired seven times at a total federal
expense, of $13.9 million when adjusted for inflation.
Program
Hurts the Environment
Levees
eliminate opportunities for fish and wildlife to gain access
to nursery habitat located in the floodplain.
Levees
block a river's ability to replace habitat lost because of sedimentation
and erosion.
Strengthening agricultural levees threatens levees that protect
population centers further downstream by blocking access for
flood-stage rivers to spread out into their natural floodplain.
In
contrast, purchase of flood easements from upstream landowners
can provide valuable flood protection with far less damage to
the environment, often at far less cost.
Contacts
- Gawain
Kripke, Friends of the Earth, (202) 783-7400
- Steve
Ellis, Taxpayers for Common Sense, (202) 546-8500 x126.
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