Guest Editorial

David McMurray, Chairman

Upper Mississippi, Illinois & Rivers Association

Contact telephone number: 319/752-9527

September 19, 2005

For the second time in 12 years, the nation is being reminded of the tremendous toll that catastrophic flooding takes, and how unprepared our nation remains to deal with such disasters. The bottom line is that we are little more prepared today than we were twelve years ago to defend our citizens and our economy from these catastrophes. These so-called “500-year” events have now devastated regions of our nation twice in the past twelve years. Is there anyone yet to be convinced that another similar disaster will occur sooner rather than later?

The Great Flood of 1993 should have been the wake-up call that prevented the recent Katrina disaster. Back then, task forces were assembled, reports generated and recommendations made that would have served to largely prevent or at least mitigate what is being called the largest natural disaster in our nation’s history. So what happened?

As the news crews left the area and life returned to normal in the Mississippi River Valley, the federal government largely lost interest in tackling the problem. The federal Office of Management and Budget continued its destructive policy dictating that all Corps of Engineer projects be evaluated primarily on the basis of whether they would generate a positive return on investment. In calculating such return, no consideration is given to the significant benefits provided by disaster avoidance or other benefits that result from flood protection. Essentially, because one “500-year flood” had just hit, OMB decided addressing the problem could wait another 500 years.

The very nature of this type of analysis assumes that the country is willing to risk massive flooding and the staggering loss of human life to save money in the short term. As the bills for Katrina start to roll in, I wonder what OMB’s analysts will say now about the return on investment if adequate flood control had been in place?

What if we had taken action? The Corps had long recommended higher levels of levee protection for New Orleans. Some of the levees protecting New Orleans had, in fact, been built to the higher standards and those levees held. It was only those built to a lesser standard – which the Corps had recommended improving – that were breached.

I would like to think that we have learned from our past mistakes. The time has come – in fact it came quite a while ago – to establish a comprehensive plan for flood control on the Mississippi River. I am hopeful that yet another opportunity to prevent these natural disasters will not be squandered.

In light of Katrina, questions are rightfully and finally being raised about the wisdom of singling out flood control projects and subjecting them to penny-wise, pound-foolish cost-benefit analyses. We need to reexamine the method by which the Corps of Engineers’ flood control projects have been funded and what can be done to reverse the trend of deteriorating resources and woefully inadequate flood protection up and down the Mississippi River.

The Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers Association has worked tirelessly toward a plan for Comprehensive Flood Control on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and has also advocated that this needs to be a system-wide, long-term approach. We hope that our friends in the federal government will now renew their focus on this critical public policy issue. The flood of tears from Katrina deserves a flood of action from our government.