Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993 TAG: 9309050279
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN COYLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Soon, perhaps even before the floodwaters have receded fully, Congress will take up the issue of what must be done to rebuild communities and restore people's lives. The president promises fast and effective responses to the destruction and misery the floods have caused. What should be done with levees that failed as the waters rose and whether they should be rebuilt will be at the top of the nation's agenda.
Congress and the president will ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that builds and maintains the flood-control structures, for answers. The Corps and other public agencies have spent years and billions of taxpayer dollars on dams, levees and canals, forcing the river into a channel that it is bound to eventually overwhelm. The clear danger is that the Corps will propose more of the same, throwing good money after bad.
There is strong evidence that this over-engineering actually has increased flooding problems in some places. The floodwaters of a river free of dams and levees fan out over adjacent low-lying areas, historically enriching farm soils. Floodplains act as natural sponges: They absorb floodwater slowly, release it over time and help to moderate flood surges.
Instead of using the floodplain as an ally to reduce flooding problems, the Corps has squeezed our rivers' natural flow into ever tighter channels. This causes water to rise higher within levees, prevents it from fanning out, accelerates the river's natural velocity and transfers upstream flooding problems downstream.
The mere existence of these dams and levees lulls communities and farmers into a false sense of security, encouraging development of the floodplain. This is one of the real tragedies of the Great Flood of 1993. As floodplain development increases, there is less open land to absorb waters, and flood damage to nearby communities intensifies. Moreover, water supplies and soils are threatened by sewage and chemical contamination.
The real victims of this misguided engineering are those who live and work along the rivers. But we, as taxpayers, will all be victims if we fail to challenge any calls for more and bigger dams and levees to fix the problem. As compelling as the need to immediately rebuild seems in the wake of the personal devastation suffered over the past weeks, we must remember that short-term ``solutions'' only will increase flooding and loss of taxpayer dollars the next time around.
In the coming months, we have the opportunity to reverse this vicious cycle, and rethink our nation's dam and levee systems. One hundred years ago, we could have kept development away from the most flood-prone areas; now, the river system has been so altered that we need new approaches that protect people and property but discourage further development.
The Flood of 1993 should be a wake-up call to Congress, the administration and other elected officials. We must start on a new approach. Wherever we can, we should reunite rivers with their natural floodplain. If levees are rebuilt in the aftermath of a flood, let's put them farther from the river, to allow more room for rising floodwaters. In establishing any new levees, let's give priority to protecting communities rather than open farmland. Temporary flooding of farmland, which helps dissipate water, is preferable to permanent damage to communities and loss of life. Indeed, we have a federal crop-insurance system - which the president has acknowledged needs reform - to deal with this problem.
As a first step in developing a new approach to flood management in the Mississippi system, Congress should direct the Corps to undertake a study of where and how it can reconnect the river to its natural floodplain in the event of a catastrophic flood. Such a plan, once developed and implemented, would take pressure off communities and the entire levee system. Certain areas could be designated to receive floodwaters when they come.
As a second step, it is time to rewrite the nation's flood-insurance program to reward communities that keep floodplains natural and unbuilt.
Heavy rains only are partially responsible for the events of the past few weeks. These floodwaters are an act of nature made worse by more than a century of environmental tampering, and by public officials who repeatedly have ignored the river's natural cycles despite past warnings. This is their chance to heed the warnings and begin to reverse the trend of over-engineering our rivers.
\ Kevin Coyle is president of American Rivers, a river-conservation organization with offices in Washington, D.C. He wrote this for The Miami Herald.
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