The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , Omaha District, completed the initial breach closure on levee L611-614 near Council Bluffs, Iowa, yesterday.
The L611-614 Levee System lies directly east of the confluence of the Platte River (River Mile 595).
“The inlet breach on L611-614 was identified as one of four priority breaches to be closed to protect vital infrastructure, following the March 2019 runoff event, ” said Bret Budd, the Chief of the Omaha District Systems Restoration Team.
“This closure stops the inflows through this breach and will allow for follow-on construction activities to increase the level of flood risk management to approximately the 4% Annual Chance Exceedance (25-yr) level for this section of the L611-614 Levee System until the system can be fully rehabilitated.”
The original contract of $6 million was awarded to Western Contracting out of Sioux City, IA.
According to USACE, there are more than 500 miles of levees on the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers, and tributaries that have 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 execute.