June 1, 2007
Court rules for Sierra Club; 1000 year Jefferson City levee  must consider cumulative impacts
by James Turner, Cheryl Hammond

On May 24 a United States District Court ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrote a defective Environment Assessment for a levee to be built at Jefferson City, Missouri.  Ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club in November 2003, the Court found that the assessment failed to evaluate the cumulative impact of the levee combined with other flood control structures that currently flank the Missouri River.

Underscoring the issue, a week of drenching thunderstorms last month caused the Missouri River to rise above flood level causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. Only the breach of levees in the western side of the state prevented near record crests downstream.  The Great Flood of 1993 has provided little incentive to stop building new levees. Since that flood, $2 billion dollars of new development has occurred just in the St. Louis area, more development in that area than in the whole previous time before 1993, much of it government supported through tax increment financing.  This includes Chesterfield Commons, the largest strip mall in the country, with two million square feet of retail space, built in Chesterfield in St. Louis County in the floodplain behind the Monarch Levee. 

Each new levee built  requires higher levees elsewhere on the river. These levees collectively cause flood levels to be higher because they prevent flood water from spreading over some broad areas of the Missouri River bottomland. By ignoring the cumulative impact of levees in the past, the Corps has made it more likely that victims of flooding will keep calling upon the federal government for disaster aid. Just last week, Governor Matt Blunt called for Federal aid for 26 counties with losses from these recent storms. But with better levee policy by the US Army Corps of Engineers, including recognizing the cumulative impact of a 1000 year levee at Jefferson City , tax dollars not spent for repetitive rebuilding in the flood plain can be used to better effect in other federal programs
 

James Turner is currently serving as chair of the executive committee of the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club. Cheryl Hammond also serves on the executive committee.

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