CR still is driving for an east-side levee, but the funding’s gone dry

It seems many people don't want to read any more stuff about the, uh, watery unpleasantness back in 2008. A couple folks have told me if they even see that word, the one that rhymes with 'blood,” mentioned in a story, they stop reading.

Enough already, they say.

So, in a valiant attempt to respect those sensitivities, I will refrain today from using the F-word. It won't be easy.

And if that's not enough, I understand. Catch you later.

I get the fatigue, I really do. I'm also getting a sense that some locals may want to mark the seventh anniversary of our great hydrological challenge in a couple of weeks with a moment of silence, one that lasts another seven years.

Trouble is, we still have the small matter of a roughly half-billion dollar public works project planned for the center of the city over the next 20 years. It's going to be tough not to mention it, all of those levees and water-repelling walls, both permanent and removable. It's like saying,” I-380? What I-380?”

And for those of us who have been closely watching the city's efforts to get funding needed for crest protection along the Cedar River, we've reached an ironic moment.

Way back in December 2009, the Army Corps of Engineers delivered news that its assessment of the city's need for water-based security measures would call for federally funded protection on the east bank only. The corps' modeling, based on the Cedar's history, could only foresee enough potential damage over the next 50 years to justify protecting downtown property on the east side. But it was close. The model found that every federal dollar spent would return a cost benefit of just over $1.

With less property value remaining on the west side, the corps modeling couldn't come up with even a one-to-one cost benefit. So it couldn't endorse funding a west side plan.

So the feds would recommend $65 million for east side and zip for the west. Toss in a couple of failed local option tax votes that would have funded west side mitigation measures, and it seemed very likely only the east side would be protected.

But then, city leaders convinced the Legislature to allow Cedar Rapids and other communities to keep a portion of state sales taxes collected locally to pay for anti-water infrastructure. The city was granted $264 million over 20 years. Much of that state money would go for west side projects.

So now both sides are funded, right? Not really.

The irony is, now, it appears more and more unlikely that the feds will fund east side river containment apparatuses. A corps of engineers budget that passed the U.S. House contains $1.6 billion for 54 construction projects across the county. But it doesn't have a single thin dime for Cedar Rapids.

Mayor Ron Corbett has been making the city's case to just about anyone who will listen, from Al Gore to Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal. He met with U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, who chairs a Senate subcommittee that handles corps funding. Corbett supported Alexander's red plaid presidential campaign back in the day.

Corbett says Alexander would like to help, but he's dealing with a daunting list of critical projects, including dams that need repair, river locks affecting billions in water commerce, etc. With so much political pressure now focused on fixing the country's vast existing and crumbling infrastructure, new projects face an uphill climb. And there are a lot of projects with far better cost-benefit ratings than the Cedar Rapids plan, stuff that would result in higher returns on a federal investment.

And as time passes, inflation could push the cost of the Cedar Rapids project high enough that it no longer crosses even the one-to-one cost-benefit threshold.

So reality is sinking in. Corbett wants the corps to provide the city with a realistic, definitive answer on prospects for funding, even if that answer is 'not a chance in Hades.”

Sooner would be better than later.

'Then we can come back to the community and say the corps isn't going to help us. We need to think of something else,” Corbett said.

The city could, for instance, return to the Iowa Legislature and seek permission to keep more sales taxes than the maximum $15 million the city is currently authorized to get annually. Or, city leaders may have to reassess how they're speeding state money already awarded. More of it may have to go to the east side.

It's going to be an interesting ongoing saga, for those of us who still feel like paying attention. And, of course, all of this could be altered dramatically by another major flood.

Aw shoot. Almost made it.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com