Army Corps comes to town to meet with public; its emerging plan still protects far too little, city says

CEDAR RAPIDS - The drama won't unfold for many months if not much longer on the federal government's decision to protect the flood-damaged city of Cedar Rapids from another destructive flood.

For now, the first acts in the affair are well known and continue to play out.

On Wednesday, representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers held two meetings here to explain to the public that its recommendation on a flood-protection system for Cedar Rapids is close to being finalized after two years of study.

The emerging recommendation, the substance of which the Corps disclosed at a public meeting in Cedar Rapids in March, is not to City Hall's liking, and is one Mayor Ron Corbett called “puzzling” at the Wednesday public forum.

The recommendation proposes a flood-protection system that protects most of the east side of the Cedar River to one foot above the 2008 flood level. The protection would stretch from the Quaker Oats plant, through the downtown to the Cargill plant below the downtown. However, the proposed system offers no protection on the west side of the river and does not protect the Cedar Lake area on the east side of the river.

“There's no warm fuzzy,” Cedar Rapids City Council member Chuck Wieneke said after listening to a Corps presentation at the Wednesday public forum. “I understand they have to live by their rules, but we can't stand by and allow them to protect just the east side of the river. That's politically, socially unacceptable.”

Dennis Hamilton, chief of project management at the Corps' Rock Island District Office, explained Wednesday that current federal rules require the Corps to use a benefit-cost ratio and to recommend a system that protects at least as much in value as what it costs to build the system.

The proposed Corps option, which would cost an estimated $116 million to construct, would hit a benefit-cost ratio of 1.08, which is just above the minimum ratio of 1.

The city of Cedar Rapids' “preferred” protection system, which provides protection on both sides of the river to the historic level of flooding in 2008, would cost about $375 million, but comes with a benefit-cost ratio of only .75, Hamilton noted.

Corbett said he would see to it that a system eventually is built to protect both sides of the river, “even if I have to get out the shovel and wheelbarrow myself.”

Donna McGurk, whose flood-damaged home at 1715 Ellis Blvd. NW is on the city buyout list for now, was at the noontime session Wednesday to try to get a better feel for what kind of flood-protection system will be built and when. With the city's proposal, a new levee would cut off her long, attractive backyard that stretches to the Cedar River, and she wanted to know if the proposed “greenway” along the river behind her house would be attractive as well. At 82, she has no plans to return to the house, but two of her children might.

“I'd love to be able to go sit in the backyard and enjoy the river,” she said.

Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor and past Cedar Rapids mayoral candidate, flinched at the Corps' image of a permanent, concrete flood-wall 13 to 15 high running along the downtown.

“Permanent, high flood walls are something that is just not going to be acceptable to business owners in the downtown district,” Olson said. “Both in appearance and in the way we want people to view our city.” He said Cedar Rapids doesn't want to be Hannibal, Mo., “where all you see from the downtown is the back of a berm and a concrete wall.”

The city's preferred system, developed in the fall of 2008, calls for more costly removable flood walls, which are put in place at times of flood.

The Corps' Hamilton said a change in technology in the time it takes to build any Cedar Rapids flood-protection system could make removable walls less expensive than they are now.

The Corps' final draft report will be presented to the public latter this summer, and then goes in front of the Corps' Civil Works Review Board in the fall. A final report should be ready for Congress by year's end.

The city's hope is that Congress will back the city's preferred plan, which takes into account regional economic and social factors, rather than the one the Corps recommends.

Hamilton said between 10 and 20 flood-protection studies are making their way toward Congress. One is for the communities of Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn. Hamilton thought the cost of a system to protect those two cities could be $700 million, and he said he understands it has an acceptable benefit-cost ratio above 1.

Congress, Hamilton said, typically allocates money for projects a piece at a time, and he said some flood-protection systems can take 10, 15, 20 years or more to build. In the best case, a piece of the Cedar Rapids system could begin construction in 2013, he said.