Missouri River Flooding

OPPD officials say the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station won’t reopen until they’re confident safety issues at the plant are resolved.

Utility leaders met in Washington, D.C., Wednesday with the NRC to update performance issues at the plant. Fort Calhoun Station has been closed since last April. Since then, the NRC has cited OPPD for multiple violations at the plant, including being ill-prepared for a flood. NRC officials say a fire at the plant last June also wasn’t reported within the required time frame.

The leader of the Corps of Engineers’ Omaha District believes the agency is better prepared in the event of flooding this year.

About 70 emergency managers and levee sponsors gathered Tuesday in Omaha for the annual Missouri River flood fight preparedness training. Last year’s Missouri River flooding inundated farms, businesses, and homes in western Iowa for more than three months.

Western Iowa residents forced out of their homes by Missouri River flooding may have another option for temporary housing.

Iowa Finance Authority spokeswoman Ashley Jared says flood victims can apply for a waiver to live in housing usually restricted by the federal government to low-income families.

Jared says the waiver applies to flood victims in Monona, Harrison, Pottawattamie, Mills, and Fremont counties. People who lived in those counties between May 25th and August first of 2011 can apply for the housing waiver.

Two more levee repair projects are underway south of Omaha following last summer’s Missouri River flooding.

The Corps of Engineers says a $43,000 contract was awarded for seeding along the levee from Bellevue to Plattsmouth. A $4.7 million repair project is also underway five miles south of Nebraska City.

Brett Budd, chief of the Omaha District’s Systems Restoration Team, says the work south of Nebraska City involves repairing scour holes and installing a seepage berm. He says the entire project will be complete by June first.