USACE has provided a list of 114 levee projects within its levee safety program that received an unacceptable rating from routine maintenance inspections conducted since Feb. 1, 2007. An unacceptable rating means a project has one or more deficient conditions that can be reasonably foreseen to prevent the project from functioning as designed, intended, or required. This information reflects a snapshot in time. It is dynamic and subject to change as projects are re-inspected, owners correct deficiencies and new data becomes available.
Public safety is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) levee safety program’s number one priority.
USACE shares responsibility among federal, state and local agencies, and private landowners for raising awareness and understanding of the risks associated with living and working behind levees. A levee does not eliminate risk, but can work to buy critical time for local emergency management officials to safely evacuate residents.
USACE has specific authorities to routinely inspect approximately 2,000 levees, or 14,000 miles nationwide as part of its ongoing levee safety program to ensure local sponsors are performing their operations and maintenance (O&M) responsibilities and to determine eligibility for the Rehabilitation and Inspection Program. This includes projects operated and maintained by USACE, projects designed and built by USACE, and non federally built projects eligible for federal rehabilitation assistance if damaged by a flood event. Projects must have an acceptable or minimally acceptable maintenance inspection rating to remain eligible for federal rehabilitation assistance.
Sponsors of projects rated unacceptable may request temporary extensions of eligibility for the Rehabilitation and Inspection Program if taking system-wide steps to reduce flood risks.
Operations and Maintenance is important to levee safety, but it is not the only factor that affects risk and reliability of a levee, and should not be represented as such. It is important to note, there is still a large universe of private and other non Corps levees that have not been inventoried or inspected/assessed. We don’t know the size of this universe, where the levees are located, their condition, or the consequences of failure, loss of life being of paramount concern.
Risk comprises the likelihood that natural events will take place; the performance of a particular levee during an event; and the consequences of failure, loss of life being of paramount concern.
It is important to understand that projects built to the 1 percent flood do not entirely eliminate risk. The 1 percent event, as it relates to the National Flood Insurance Program, is not a safety standard. There remains the risk that the levee could overtop, breach or fail or it could be overwhelmed by an event greater than its design.
Levees alone do not eliminate risk. Flood risk reduction includes a combination of local decisions about land use, zoning, and building codes; outreach and education; local emergency management planning and evacuation plans; and flood insurance.
This list does not include the122 projects identified Feb. 1, 2007. Sixty-three of those 122 projects either did not make the necessary repairs or did not make the repairs within the one year correction period provided. These 63 projects are no longer active in the Corps' safety program and, therefore, are not eligible for federal rehabilitation funds to repair damages to the levee following a flood event. They may become active if repairs are made and reapply to the program. The remaining 45 projects made the necessary repairs and are active in the Corp’s safety program. 14 projects were erroneously on the list erroneously.
It should be noted that all levees identified on the original “122” list will no longer be tracked as a separate list. The 122 levees were provided a one-time one year correction period as USACE transitioned into a more consistent and comprehensive inspection process. The improved routine inspection processes are now being fully implemented and all levees within the USACE safety program will go through the same inspection procedures.
List of Unacceptably Maintained Levees, 7 February 2009
Contact 202-761-1809.