Owners of levees on the Arkansas River are still awaiting repairs for damage inflicted by historic flooding in spring 2019, which they expect collectively will cost millions of dollars.
Work has been done in the interim at many of the levees, such as installing new flap gates to control water flow, but some haven't been able to begin needed repairs.
A damaged levee can threaten a community and breach within hours, but it takes much longer to rebuild a levee.
Damage must be assessed and confirmed; engineering and design must be planned; regulatory compliance must be ensured; contracts must be signed; workers must obtain rights of entry on private land; and money must be found, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials say.
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For many levee owners in Arkansas, money arrived only this year so repairs haven't begun. That still leaves residents who were hurt last spring unprotected in the event of more flooding.
Levee owners and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the odds of record flooding like last year's happening again were low, and noted that the levees, though damaged, still held up fairly well last year. Corps officials also noted levee damage isn't the same as levee failure.
Still, the thought of relying on a damaged levee in another flood leaves some with an uneasy feeling.
"If we don't get these repairs made, I'm not sure we could handle another one," said Steven Brown, secretary of the Tucker Lake Levee and Drainage District.
Last year's flooding topped and/or breached numerous levees, including some that had been considered in good condition.
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The Corps of Engineers has estimated that getting levees along the Arkansas River that aren't owned by the Corps repaired and into good enough shape for future Corps assistance would cost $95 million.
Half of the organizations awarded grant money by the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, through a special $10 million fund established by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and approved by lawmakers, are eligible for Corps assistance, which means the Corps is paying for 80% of the work required to repair those levees. The others either aren't in good enough shape for Corps assistance or weren't even known to the Corps.
That's a consistent reality across Arkansas. Statewide, about half of the levees that are known to the Corps and have been assessed by the Corps have been deemed "unacceptable." Often, the rating is because the levee board is inactive or isn't sufficiently maintaining the structures.
Levee maintenance problems prompted Hutchinson to create a task force last summer to examine ways to improve the state's levees. That task force presented its final report to Hutchinson at the beginning of the year. He said he wants lawmakers to start a grant program for levees, and for levee districts within the same levee system to consider consolidating to ensure active and consistent maintenance.
The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission approved $8.8 million of that funding for 14 levee districts in January, and amended grants to five of those districts earlier this month to increase funding and provide funding to two additional entities. The total funds now exceed $10 million, while the awards are maximum estimates for repairs that may not be reached.
The Dardanelle levee in Yell County is the first of those levees to take bids for the repair work, said Anna Thrash, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. Construction should start in the next two weeks, she said.
The Dardanelle levee breached last spring and threatened the town. Nearby residents evacuated. Water flooded a large area, washed out a state highway and badly damaged about a half-dozen homes.
The levee, though in the Corps' Rehabilitation and Inspection Program, had fallen out of compliance and was ineligible for Corps money to fix it.
Yell County took over operations of the levee from the Dardanelle Drainage District and eventually consolidated it with the Carden Bottoms Levee District. County Judge Mark Thone wanted to ensure the levee would be run by a board that would actively maintain it.
The state Department of Transportation has completed its work rebuilding 1.5 miles of Arkansas 155, spending more than $1 million doing so, department spokesman Randy Ort said.
The county also signed a $450,000 contract with HardRock Construction to fix the Dardanelle levee, Thone said. The county's Petit Jean levee, which was significantly less damaged, also should be fixed soon, he said.
More than 100 miles downriver, the Tucker Lake Levee and Drainage District is still in the engineering and design process of fixing its estimated $1.3 million in levee damage, Brown said. The levee, which is just north of Pine Bluff, didn't breach, but its infrastructure was aging and parts collapsed.
"If it had broken, there's a chance the city of Pine Bluff could have flooded," Brown said.
The levee protects businesses and parts of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Those areas didn't flood, but waters forced one business on Island Harbor Road to move some wastewater operations.
Like the Dardanelle Drainage District, the Tucker Lake Levee and Drainage District was an inactive member of the Corps' program. The board wasn't inactive, Brown said, but it hadn't collected tax assessments from those protected by the levee in decades, so repairs necessary for Corps compliance were unaffordable.
A tax assessment existed once upon a time, Brown said, but apparently it was canceled.
"We can't even find the records," he said. "I don't know why."
The district is working with a law firm on a tax assessment proposal, and Brown said officials are still trying to figure out who would be assessed and what the amount of the assessment should be.
The state's levee task force took up the issue of districts not having tax assessments, nor sufficient funds, in its final recommendations to Hutchinson.
The task force recommended consolidating inactive levee districts with active ones if they are part of the same levee system, and advised increased levee district reporting to the state that would, among other things, allow Arkansas to create an annual report of vulnerabilities for use during emergencies.
Additionally, assessments also must be high enough to support operations and maintenance, as well as support a reserve fund for emergencies, according to the recommendations.
Currently, many districts don't raise enough money for that. Some districts contend they cannot increase property owners' assessments, while others may be hampered by a limit to what they can assess.
Last fall, task force members said they intended to discuss this year a better limit on assessments so that districts may collect sufficient funds.
The task force also suggested that levee districts do what they can to join the Corps' Rehabilitation and Inspection Program to ensure they will have federal assistance the next time the levees are damaged.
Since last spring, "quite a few" levee districts have reached out to the Corps about doing that, said Jay Townsend, spokesman for the Corps' Little Rock district.
A Section on 05/31/2020