The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District closed a sixth breach along Missouri River Levee System L-550, located near Missouri River Mile 524 southwest of Rock Port, Missouri, on Tuesday.
This is the sixth breach that has been closed under the current contract with Weston Solutions, Inc. of West Chester, PA, leaving one remaining breach on the L-550 Levee System to be repaired, reported the Army Corps.
USACE anticipates that this final breach will also be closed by the beginning of April.
According to the Army Corps, the closure of these breaches will provide an interim level of flood risk management benefits to the area behind the levee system until full repairs can be made to the system, which are scheduled to be completed this year.
“ Every time we close a breach is a significant accomplishment towards restoring the damaged levee systems, but we also understand that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The team working on the L-550 Levee System has done an excellent job at capitalizing on the mild winter weather we has experienced so far and continues to be dedicated to restoring the levee system as soon as possible ,” said Dustin Davis, USACE Resident Engineer for the L-550 Levee Repair Project .
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 efforts will take an extended period of time to complete.