By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Farmers in the Missouri Bootheel have had little to cheer in recent weeks, but they were jumping for joy when they learned late last week federal officials began to repair the Birds Point levee.

The action comes after the U.S. House’s Energy and Water Subcommittee added slightly more than $1 billion toward the repair and/or replacement of levees and other flood damages nationally, to be included in the government’s fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

How much of that key panel’s suggested allocation makes it through budget negotiations remains uncertain, but U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) said she believes the action gave the Army Corps of Engineers support to begin repairing the Birds Point levee immediately.

Corps officials in early May blasted holes in the levee to relieve upstream flooding and potential damage to Cairo, Ill., at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The move flooded some 130,000 acres of prime Bootheel farmland, and as some farmers have replanted corn and planted soybeans since, they remain concerned about ongoing flooding along the Missouri River.
Corps officials said last week they believe high water will be dispersed enough so as not to cause additional flooding south of the confluence, but having the Birds Point levee repaired temporarily will give farmers some measure of comfort.

Farmer Carlin Bennett, presiding commissioner for Mississippi County, Mo., is thrilled with the news. “(Farmers are) doing back flips as we speak,” he said. “It’s a temporary levee, it’s not a permanent fix. But we’re so glad that something is finally going to be done.”

Corps spokesman Jim Pogue said the agency began moving dirt late last week. “Needless to say, we’re anxious to get started,” he said.

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission, approved the repairs and issued orders to have the Corps rebuild the levee height to 51 feet. It had been 60.5 feet. Pogue called the project an “interim fix.

“This will get us to some level of increased protection as decisions are made about funding and that sort of thing,” he said.

The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway and levee are part of a system built after the great flood of 1927; other than this year, the floodway hadn’t been activated since flooding in 1937. By most accounts, the release of water from Birds Point and throughout the lower Mississippi River basin did what it was designed to do – it relieved pressure on towns up and down the river, Pogue said.

Emerson said news of the rebuild is better late than never. “Our producers have in many cases taken on considerable risk by putting a crop in on their land in the floodway,” she said in a statement.

“The temporary levee is vital to protecting them against further losses as a result of the Corps’ destruction of the levee at Birds Point. I don’t think they should take a day off until the Birds Point levee is restored to its original condition.”

Under the committee plan, the extra Corps funds would be covered by reallocating unspent stimulus money for high-speed rail. All totaled, flooding along the Mississippi covered some 6.8 million acres, and high-water marks were set at most spots along the river. Cairo’s 61.72 feet smashed the 1927 record of 59.5 feet.