Cedar Rapids leaders wonder if flood plan could be scaled back

Midstream in the Army Corps of Engineers' crucial flood study of Cedar Rapids, local officials have begun to wonder if they will get all they hope for in a flood-protection system.

A year ago, city leaders determined the kind of flood-protection system the community wanted to prevent a repeat of the city's historical 2008 flood. This “preferred” plan, estimated at a total cost of $1 billion, is something of a wish list. Today, the Corps is in the middle of its study - a 31-month, $7.5 million feasibility study required by federal law.

It's too soon, Corps officials say, to know what the study will conclude. Even so, the possibility of scaled-back protection has some on edge.

Ken DeKeyser, the city's storm water management engineer, said the city continues to advocate for a flood-protection system that protects the city to a Cedar River height of 31.12 feet - the height of the crest in 2008 - plus an additional cushion, or freeboard, of three feet for levees and flood walls.

Not knowing for sure what level of flood protection is coming, said Doug Neumann, creates a measure of unease, despite the “great work” to date on local flood-management planning.

“So any time the Corps, the city or anyone else is talking about flood protection, there will be stakeholders listening intently to every word,” said Neumann, executive director of the local flood-recovery entity, the Economic Planning and Redevelopment Corp.

City Manager Jim Prosser said the community's preferred plan is what any community would want: “Getting a high level of maximum protection that the city could reasonably attempt to justify.” Imagine seeking something less, he said.

The estimated price tag includes $500 million for levees, flood walls and pumping stations, and perhaps just as much for related property purchases and rebuilding neighborhoods.

Prosser knows there are no guarantees.

“Managing expectations has always been a challenge from Day One,” Prosser added. “We never told people that to protect to three feet above the record flood was a slam dunk. We never intended to give that impression.”

For now, eyes are on a mathematical ratio that dictates the recommendations the Corps makes to Congress about flood-protection projects. The benefit-cost ratio requires, at minimum, that a proposed project protect a value of property equal to the cost of protection via new levees, flood walls and other devices.

City Council member and mayoral candidate Brian Fagan has called meeting the requirement one of the city's immediate “challenges.”

The Corps, the city's DeKeyser said, will determine the benefit-cost ratio to protect against a 100-year flood, a 500-year flood, the 2008 flood and levels in between.

The city's 100- and 500-year flood plains have changed because of the 2008 flood, and if those new calculations are used, he notes that a 500-year-flood system, plus three feet for levees, would protect the city nearly to the record 2008 level.

Dennis Hamilton, chief of project management at the Corps' district office in Rock Island, Ill., said the Corps is gathering data on property values; is evaluating culturally and historically significant buildings; and is doing geotechnical work where levees and flood walls might go. He expects a public open house this winter and a draft report by summer.

Hamilton and Congressman Dave Loebsack, D-Mount Vernon, note that Congress is planning to draft a new Water Resources Development Act in 2010, which provides funding for most flood-protection projects, and how or if the Cedar Rapids project would fit in the act is unknown.

Hamilton was among Corps officials who helped the city develop its preferred protection plan a year ago. He believes the chance of it meeting the benefit-cost ratio will be “a relatively close call.”

“And that's one of the reasons that it's so important that we get it right. … That we really sharpen our pencils … so we can make a solid recommendation based on fact,” he said.

A lot of flood-protection projects across the country are competing for funding. In written comments last week, Sen. Tom Harkin said getting a flood-protection project funded “is by no means an easy task.” He said projects face “a number of obstacles,” one of which is the benefit-cost ratio.

The city's Prosser said the city always has known it would be a “great challenge” to meet the criteria for the benefit-cost ratio, but the Corps has not written anything off yet.

Nonetheless, Prosser already talks about a Plan B, meaning the city is moving ahead on plans to acquire properties to lessen future flood risk. Plan B also means no part of the city's planning to date has to start over if the Corps doesn't approve the city's preferred plan.

The Corps' Hamilton said Cedar Rapids' work in developing a preferred flood-protection plan has been “extremely beneficial” to the Corps because it involved public input, expert analysis and “a vision of where they wanted to go.”

Yes, Hamilton said, the Corps is looking for a flood-protection alternative with the greatest net benefits that “would accrue to the United States.”

But he is quick to add; “If we identify an alternative that is more desirable to the city, but it has a benefit-cost ratio above (the minimum requirement), then we can still recommend that as the locally preferred plan.”