By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A new agreement has been reached for the Army Corps of Engineers to consider changes to levees along the Missouri River in an effort to avoid the major floods of the past few years.
After the 2019 flood, state officials in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa worked together to suggest changes to reduce the risk of another major flood.
Corps of Engineers Kansas City District Commander, Colonel Travis Rayfield, says federal law restricts what the Corps of Engineers can do when rebuilding levees broken by floodwaters.
"So, once they're built, when you do a study that will allow us to, in our verbiage we do a study which is really an informal plan, will give us a chance to relook how we've aligned levees and structural solutions," Rayfield tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So, what does that mean? It gives us our first chance to maybe move levees or other physical structures to let the water go through in a better manner."
The study in Holt County will focus on river miles 515 to 45o across the Missouri River from Holt County.
Rayfield, says the new agreement comes in two parts.
"We're looking systematically at the lower 730 miles of the Missouri River," Rayfield says. "That's to see how much water is moving through, where it comes from, and how it goes that's the system plan."
Rayfield says the Corps then works to find spots where the water isn't moving adequately downstream, such as in Holt County.
"In Holt County the water is backing up and levees are breaking, the spinoff authority lets us go and find a structural solution," Rayfield explains. "So, there will be a dance that will be tied together, the system plan gives us the volume and quantity of water that needs to come through, and then these spinoffs will give us the local authority to change how levees are aligned, so that's what's new and what's going on for the Corps of Engineers."
The new spin off study is a cost-share agreement between local Holt County officials, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Rayfield says floods start and end locally, but this partnership is about coming up with solutions all the way up to the federal level.
"What this partnership means is we need solutions for how we want that water to move through in a flood that the local government can support, the state government can support, and the federal government can support," Rayfield says. "And so, really that's what this partnership is about, is understanding what will work in this specific footprint informed by the new data and science we've got from the most recent floods."
The Army Corps of Engineers will factor major floods in 1993, 2011, and 2019 into the study.
