OMAHA, Neb.— The Missouri River Levee System L-575 sustained significant damage, including seven breaches, during the March 2019 flood event. Since that time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District has completed interim breach repairs at six of the seven breach locations, as well as significant repairs along the remainder of the levee system. The District made a target of having the seventh breach, breach “G”, closed and having the entirety of the levee system returned to its pre-flood elevation by Mar. 1.
At this time the team remains on track to meet this goal. The team has been working 24 hours, seven days a week to achieve this goal, knowing how important the repairs to this levee system are to the communities and land owner behind the levee. Since the APTIM team mobilized to the project site on Jan.11, more than 31,000 equipment hours have been performed by operators working on the L-575 levee system. This comes out to nearly 1,000 equipment hours per day, with the team averaging approximately 1400 hours per day during the past week.
Another key factor in the progress that the team has made towards the Mar. 1, goal has been the team’s ability to capitalize on the nearby Missouri River Recovery Program lands which are as source of borrow material for the levee repairs. This will likely lead to at least a $30M cost reduction on the L-575 levee system repairs by the time the repairs on the “G” breach are complete, which is a savings to both the USACE construction contract as well as the levee sponsors. It is also the goal of both the Omaha and Kansas City Districts that once the levee repairs are made that these excavation areas can also provide significant habitat along the Missouri River corridor, providing a benefit back to the MRRP land.
“2019 has presented the team with a host of challenges that were not faced during previous flood events, such as finding accessible borrow material. It has only been through continual coordination with sponsors, stakeholders, agencies, and other USACE Districts, including our sister district in Kansas City, that we have been able to keep the levee repair efforts moving forward.” said Bret Budd, Chief of the Omaha Systems Restoration Team.
Omaha District’s focus remains on ensuring the safety of citizens and communicating the conditions on the river systems to all of our partners and stakeholders. The Corps continues to provide flood fight assistance to state, local and tribal government agencies.
Release no. 20-017