By Katie Schubert
Omaha, NE – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says 19 levee repair projects are in the works at a cost of $280 million dollars.
Officials from the Corps' Omaha office updated the levee repairs during a conference call Friday afternoon. Last summer's Missouri River flooding caused several levee breaches along the Nebraska-Iowa border, and farther south in to Missouri.
Kim Thomas, Chief of the Omaha District's Emergency Management Division, says a contract was awarded December 22nd for repairs to the 28th Street and Veterans Memorial pump station in Council Bluffs. Levee projects are also underway south of the Omaha metro. Thomas says contractors are working to repair two levee breaches between Percival and Hamburg, Iowa. A contract was also awarded in late October for levee work at Rock Port, Missouri.
Corps officials say 2011 ended with all flood water released from the six main stem reservoirs that feed in to the Missouri River. Water releases from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota will be held at 22,000 cubic feet per second in to February.
The Corps released its 2012 Annual Operating Plan last Friday.
On the web: www.nwo.usace.army.mil