By Linda F. Jarrett
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency deaccredited five Metro East levees in the summer of 2007, it could have been bad news for the three affected counties, Madison, Monroe and St. Clair.
Repairs were estimated at $180 million with local jurisdictions funding 35 percent, and the federal government covering the remaining 65 percent. However, in light of the current economic situation, local officials decided to take charge by raising the entire amount needed to begin repairs as soon as possible, with a goal of completing the necessary repair within 10 years.
In what has been described as a “textbook case of how government should work” by Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan, the counties, along with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-IL) and U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL), and FEMA representatives worked together on a plan to bring the levees up to snuff.
THE LEVEE PROBLEM
Over 50 years old, the Wood River, Metro East, Prairie DuPont, Fish Lake and the Chain of Rocks levees, stretch for 11 miles from the Mississippi River east to Bluff Road in an area known as the American Bottoms.
In 2007 the Core of Engineers found deficiencies in the Illinois levees. Specifically the need to use additional flood fighting measures such as sandbagging, to control underseepage. Because of this, FEMA said that it would no longer certify that the levees could protect the region from a 100-year flood, and would issue new maps for the area showing it as no longer protected.
The upshot of this move would be to require increased insurance rates for those making use of a federally regulated financing institutions and place special requirements on new development in the area.
This would, according to Susan Stauder, vice-president for infrastructure and public policy for the Regional Chamber and Growth Association, put 150,000 Metro East residents and 50,000 jobs at risk, with approximately $9 billion in its development pipeline.
THE FIRST STEP
One of the first things to happen was assembling a Leadership Task Force to devise and oversee a necessary plan of action.
Jim Pennekamp, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Regional Economic Development and Executive Director University Park Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, was appointed chairman.
“We needed to analyze the situation, and it was suggested that this was an issue for East-West Gateway, the regions metropolitan planning agency. They picked up the challenge to look at what was going on. One of the first steps was to create this Leadership Task Force,” he says.
“It was set up to make recommendations on how we needed to proceed,” Pennekamp says. “And essentially, what the focus of the discussion became was to enable the legislation for counties to implement a quarter-cent sales tax for levee repair work.”
Maggie Hales, deputy executive director for the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, says that the counties asked East-West to oversee consultants to help on the financial, legal and engineering issues.
“Those contracts were for initial analysis, not for carrying out the building of the project, so the counties donated funding to cover cost of the contracts, and we entered contracts with Husch, Blackwell Sanders for legal and legislative help, Stifel Nicolaus for financial advice, and URS Corp. to evaluate the engineering problem.
“The counties realized they had to put together a plan to make the improvements within 10 years,” she says. “They knew there was a possibility that if they applied for a certain status called the Restoration Zone Status (also called AR Zone), that would let residents and business have flood insurance at the old rate as long as they had a plan in play.”
Patrick McKeehan, executive director of the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois says “The AR designation basically says there is a levee system in existence, and while it doesn’t meet the standards, there is a plan to reconstruct those levees within 10 years.
“By securing the designation,” he says, “it maintains the flood insurance rates at present rates, and reduces some of the stringent new construction standards that would be in place if we didn’t have the designation.”
Hales says that while the region is committed to getting the levees restored within 10 years, “it is actually in our own schedule to get it done in five years.
WHAT ELSE WAS HAPPENING
While the Task Force was going about its business, Illinois Sen. Bill Haine drafted legislation that paved the way for Madison, Monroe and St. Clair counties to establish flood protection districts in order to coordinate and fund the levee repairs. The bill gave the counties authority to levy a new quarter-cent sales tax for the authorized levee improvements.
McKeehan notes that there were three reasons this approach was necessary.
1. The Federal Government did not have the funds on hand to do repairs, and based upon its normal process would take 20 or more years to allocate sufficient monies.
2. The Federal Government apportions monies for approved projects on an annual basis, so only a small percentage of needed repairs would be done each year.
3. The Federal Government has a long list of pre-approved projects nationally that would receive any new funds long before any monies designated for the five Metro East levees.
“These became the strong reasons why we couldn’t wait 20 years to fix the levees. We would not place our citizens, businesses and the base of our economic wealth at risk,” McKeehan says. “So we needed to control our own fate to get the repair work started as soon as possible, and be able to expend the money that we are making available to make this project move forward.
“Hopefully, down the road, the Federal Government will come in when its match becomes available,” he says.
The Chain of Rocks levee is not included in the cost, McKeehan says, since it is 100 percent owned by the Corps of Engineers.
DRAWING MAPS
Another problem that arose was the fact that FEMA was going to put new flood risk maps into effect for the American Bottoms district. However, the flood areas on the Missouri side of the Mississippi were not scheduled for mapping for three years, because Missouri was in a different FEMA region than Illinois.
McKeehan says Missouri and Illinois were on two different schedules for mapping. “They did not anticipate doing the remapping on the Missouri side for about three years. But, by FEMA’s own statement, these levees are all linked and tied together.
“What we did not understand,” he says, “Was why just look at the Illinois side and not the whole system?”
Dunstan says that the bottom line was that if the mapping became permanent, it could require residents and small businesses throughout the Metro East region to carry flood insurance, albeit at reduced rates that they had not in the past been required to carry. Residents in the equivalent areas in Missouri would not have to buy insurance.
“To put things in perspective,” he says, “When Katrina hit in New Orleans, 80 to 85 percent of the people had flood insurance. Less than one percent in this area has flood insurance.”
McKeehan says that requiring residents and businesses to purchase flood insurance “could potentially put businesses and communities in the Metro East region at an economic disadvantage.”
“If the maps had been issued next August, which we thought it was going to happen,” Hales says, “rather than big swaths of the American Bottoms being declared flood zones, they would have been declared AR zones. That would have provided significant relief from the cost of insurance and development restrictions in a flood zone.
In September, responding to a request by Costello and Durbin, FEMA agreed to protect residents and businesses in the Metro East region from paying higher flood insurance premiums than their Missouri counterparts. While Illinois residents will be encouraged to purchase flood insurance as soon as possible, FEMA’s decision will not require low-income residents in Illinois to purchase flood insurance until they have a chance to appeal their newly-drawn flood maps and Missouri mapping is complete.
“Congressman Costello and Sen. Durbin worked diligently on this issue,” McKeehan says. “Their constant efforts to expand the time frame created economic equity between Missouri and Illinois. Our state legislatures responded in terms of creating legislation, and worked through the necessary compromises and modifications to make sure it got passed.”
THE PLAYERS
This project was orchestrated by many people including Illinois State Representatives Jay Hoffman (D-Collinsville) and Daniel Beiser (D-Alton), and Senators Bill Haine (D-Alton), James Clayborne (D-Belleville) and Frank Watson (R-Greenville).
Madison County Board Chair Alan Dunstan, St. Clair County Board Chair Mark Kern and Monroe County Board Chair Dale Haudrich worked to see that the legislatively enabled financial solution was implemented in the three counties to make levee repairs possible.
“Unfortunately, the federal government initially forced action unilaterally from the State of Illinois regarding decertification of its levees,” Hoffman says. “Sen. Durbin, Congressman Costello, and Sen. (Barack) Obama worked very hard, and we essentially got a temporary reprieve, which was the mapping that made us consistent with Missouri.
“We know long term that we would have to address this issue or face decertification of the levee system in Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties which would be devastating to not only businesses, but the residents that live in that area,” Hoffman says.
THE REST OF THE STORY
The “good news” part of this story is how all branches of government saw a problem, evaluated facets of the problem, and then hatched a workable plan to solve the problem.
“I cannot say enough about the Democratic and Republican leadership in Springfield on this issue,” Dunstan says. “My board, Monroe County and St. Clair County worked together to come up with a way to work this out. East-West Gateway has done a tremendous job in helping us staff this. The Leadership Council and the task force were involved and worked through this process.
“At one time our maps were going to become permanent in August of 2009,” Dunstan says. “But now, FEMA has, by executive order, put us on the same page as Missouri as far as remapping these areas.
“A lot of areas in the country are looking at this process and we’ve told FEMA and the Corps of Engineers to use us as an example,” Dunstan says. “This model can be used all over the nation where there is flooding. They have been excellent to work with, and I think we’ll come up with some good solutions.”
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