Breach of oversight

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

The Mississippi River topped more than two dozen levees, flooding small towns along its banks during a month in which severe flooding in six Midwestern states has killed at least two dozen people, injured dozens of others and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

Tens of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes and crops have been destroyed. U.S. economists say consumers can expect to see the high costs of some food items rise. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has handed out more than $81 million in housing assistance along with water and meals.

As levee after levee was breached these past weeks, we could not help but recall that in May a top Army Corps of Engineers official said that his agency, which is charged with overseeing the thousands of levees that are supposed to protect America’s towns from flooding, has no idea where most of these levees are or what their condition is.

Eric Halpin, a dam and levee safety administrator for the corps, told the AP last month that agency officials need “to get our arms around this issue.” Many of these earthen barriers are decades old and were not built to withstand massive events — events, we assume, such as those now unfolding across the Midwest.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Congress directed the corps to create an inventory of the levees it maintains. But the legislation did not provide funding for such work, and no funding is expected before 2009. Even then, there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other levees maintained by local or state entities that the corps doesn’t track and that have gone unaccounted for.

Legislation calling for better oversight is no good without the funding to do the work. Rather than spending money on prevention, however, federal officials are now faced with a cleanup and rebuilding process that will cost billions.