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| Tri-State Area starting to prepare for ’10 flooding |
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Just days after a winter storm dumped another thick layer of snow on the Tri-State Area, cities on the Mississippi River have been advised about probable spring flooding. Keokuk and Warsaw, Ill., are taking the flood risk warning seriously. Both cities fought serious battles during the Flood of 2008 to keep the raging river from breaching levees and damaging city infrastructure. The previous great flood, known as the Flood of 1993, was called a 500-year flood because of its record-breaking high water levels and destruction. “We’ll be covering a couple of items about this at the (city council) workshop Thursday,” said Keokuk Public Works Director Gerald Moughler. “I think it (the flooding) is going to be bad.”Moughler intends to test the city’s pumps at the wastewater treatment plant soon. “And the U.S. Corps of Engineers is going to offer 80-20 money for us to rip rap another 30 feet along the 2,200-foot earthen flood wall by the wastewater plant,” he said. “The rip rap will go on the riverside to help cut wave action. This is good, but it only gives us a short window to do something with that.” The placement of the rip rap, large rock, will be financed 80 percent by the government with a 20 percent match from the city. Moughler is concerned that a normal spring thaw will result in early flooding, well before the rip rap project could be completed. “We had 150 percent of our annual rainfall last year, and that’s before the snow pack,” Moughler said. “I’ve asked if I can get four pallets of sandbags sent (4,000 sandbags). I know Roquette has already started.” Roquette America, Inc., a large corn processor and area employer, is located on the Mississippi River, just downstream from the Keokuk-Hamilton Bridge. To protect its plant from further spring flooding, Roquette and the city built a flood wall after the Flood of 1993. The floodwall, which was built in part with federal funding, also protects Keokuk’s wastewater treatment plant. Warsaw took steps during the cleanup phase after the Flood of 2008 to better protect its water intake and intake pumps. “Around the water intake pumps, we’ve raised the ground level up to the top of the access cover to the pumps,” said Warsaw Mayor Gary Treatch. “When the river got as high as the levee, we had to sandbag it, but we’ve raised the levee down there.” The city’s sanitary lagoon may be Warsaw’s biggest Achilles heel, Treatch believes. The lagoon was silted in and sustained structural damage during the Flood of 2008, but hasn’t yet been repaired due to last year’s extremely wet spring and summer. “If we have a really high river like last time, that will set us back with our lagoon work,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do about the river or weather.” |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 February 2010 03:43 ) |