Posted on Fri, May. 09, 2008

Senate OKs delay on levee repairs

Bill still awaits final passage

By Dave Montgomery

Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON --

The Senate on Thursday approved a measure by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, that would give metro-east officials more time to repair Mississippi River levees before the federal government declares the area a flood hazard zone.

As many as 150,000 Illinois residents are facing mandatory flood insurance as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) moves toward declaring the region a flood hazard zone until the levees are repaired.

The flood-plain remapping has angered political leaders and businesses throughout metro-east because Missouri, which is part of the same watershed, won't be subject to remapping for one or two more years. Illinois residents fear the mandated flood insurance will undercut property values and send future development across the river.

Durbin's amendment, similar to a House-passed measured sponsored by Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, would delay the requirement to purchase flood insurance until remapping has been completed for the entire watershed. It would put residents on both sides of the Mississippi River on an equal playing field, Durbin said, and protect $5 billion of business investments in metro-east.

The Senate voted 68-24 to add Durbin's amendment to national flood insurance legislation. The bill is expected to pass the Senate next week, and differences between the two measures, including those in the Costello and Durbin amendments, will be resolved in a House-Senate conference.

Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan led a metro-east delegation to Washington earlier this year to lobby in behalf of the Durbin amendment. Dunstan said that metro-east plans to cooperate with the federal government to carry out the needed repairs on the levees but needs time to perform the work and wants equal treatment with Missouri.

Durbin said his amendment "will even the playing field until the entire remapping has been completed for the entire watershed." Without it, he said, businesses and residents on the Illinois side would be at a "clear disadvantage" by being forced to pay higher insurance premiums before the government remaps the Missouri side.

St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern said he was happy to hear that the Durbin bill had passed the Senate. "And so what it allows us is time to move ahead with our plan to fix the levees ," Kern said.

If the measure had failed, Kern said, then new flood maps for the metro-east would have been published in June, resulting in higher flood insurance rates and new, more stringent building codes.

"It would have virtually stalled all building, all new developments in the affected area," Kern said. "And it would've caused a lot of hardships for homeowners with their insurance bills."

Meanwhile, state Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, is pushing for the passage of a bill he sponsored in the Illinois Senate providing for a temporary quarter-cent sales tax to fund levee repair.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), working with the Army Corps of Engineers, is reassessing levees and flood control measures across the nation as a result of weaknesses exposed by Hurricane Katrina and other devastating storms.

The amendments by Durbin and Costello seek the same goal -- eliminating inequities among communities in the same flood plains -- but contain differences that will require further deliberations by a conference committee. Passage of the Durbin amendment, however, marked another big step toward metro-east efforts to lessen the economic pain caused by the FEMA remapping.

The Illinois senator told colleagues that, under his amendment, "the entire watershed has to be mapped and completed before any new rates apply.

"This will not disadvantage either side of the river, but it says that they will all be announced at the same time," Durbin said.

FEMA is expected to release preliminary maps for Madison, Monroe and St. Clair counties in June. The levee repairs could cost up to $180 million and local officials have been studying ways to finance the project.