The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha District closed two outlet breaches on the Missouri River Levee System L-575 last week.
These are the fourth and fifth breaches to be closed on the L-575 system, providing an initial level of flood risk management to the area behind this downstream portion of the levee. The USACE team and contractor will now continue repairs on these breach locations while also focusing on the two remaining outlet breaches.
“The team remains focused on repairing the substantial damages caused by the 2019 flooding to the L-575 levee system, as we understand how important rehabilitating this levee as soon as possible is to the communities and landowners behind the levee. Our plan is to continue to work every day that the weather allows us to push towards this goal,” said Corina Zhang, L-575 project resident engineer.
The Omaha District also awarded a $6.5M construction contract to Young’s General Contracting, Inc. of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, on Wednesday.
This contract will repair the L-561 Nishnabotna and High Creek Levee system, which is a left bank tributary levee system. According to USACE, this is the ninth contract awarded to fully repair a tributary levee system and the first to be awarded in the state of Missouri by the Omaha District.
“While a lot of the focus has been on the Missouri River Levee Systems, we also continue to have teams committed to restoring the smaller tributary levee systems as quickly as possible. We understand that these levee systems are vital to small communities and farmers across the Omaha District’s area of responsibility,” said Brent Cossette, Project Manager for the Omaha District Systems Restoration Team.
There are more than 500 miles of levees on the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers, and tributaries that experienced significant flood damage since March 2019. Due to the magnitude of damage along these levees, repair of the levee system efforts will take an extended period of time to complete, said USACE.