Ramp up the pressure

If Cedar Rapids wants to pursue its vast vision for Cedar River flood protection, it's going to have to do so with a strong push from Iowa's congressional delegation, but without the support of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps issued a preliminary report last week declaring that the city's preferred plan for flood protection, including a system of levees and flood walls to protect the heart of the city, is too costly compared to its potential benefit. Using decades of river data, models and damage estimates, the Corps believes the risk of another record flood on the scale of 2008 is too low to warrant an expensive system to mitigate that level of damage over the next 50 years.

The Corps will issue its final report at the end of June; it also will present potential alternatives. But it's unlikely anything will change between now and then that would make the levee system feasible under the Corps' analysis. Federal officials have not released what they believe is the total cost of the project.

The analysis is disappointing, considering that the preferred plan is the product of a long public input process and cost millions of dollars to develop. The plan uses green space, levees and removable flood walls to both give the river more room and protect property, including historic neighborhoods, industry and downtown.

The Corps analysis uses lots of data on the Cedar's history, but it does not account for the growing evidence that our future climate may bring even more flooding. The analysis' determination of a flood's potential cost also uses fairly narrow estimates of the cost of fighting a future flood and potential damage to infrastructure and property as it's valued today. We appreciate that the Corps is hemmed in by the constraints of federal law, but we're skeptical of its low-risk appraisal.

Local leaders are now in a tough spot. They can accept the Corps pronouncement and seek a more limited protection system that shields fewer parts of the riverfront. Or they can press ahead and push for Congress to fund the preferred levee system anyway.

We agree with Mayor Ron Corbett, who has said the city should mount a lobbying effort to get the full levee system funded. He points to 1967, when city leaders who were warned that a massive flood was possible decided it would be too costly to make preparations.

Corbett insists that he does not want future residents of the city to look back at 2008 and wonder why action was not taken.

We must also keep pressure on state and federal officials to make watershed management and flood prevention a priority. Prevention through land-use changes and other steps, more so than levees, will be key to the city's future safety.

A state panel is studying potential watershed management measures, and we hope its recommendations get the keen legislative attention they deserve.