The U.S. House passed a piece of water source legislation this week that included provision to help levee safety along the Mississippi River.
15th District Congresswoman Mary Miller announced that her sponsorship of provisions in the Water Resources Development Act of 2024 contains language and changes that gives local levee sponsors along the Upper Mississippi River more flexibility to maintain their systems and allows them to better prepare for future floods by addressing the federal regulatory challenges that make levee improvements difficult.
Among the provisions sponsored by Miller, it authorizes a new Upper Mississippi River System Flood Risk Study, which will be used to improve flood resiliency and reduce future flood risk. The bill also creates a new office of expertise at the US Army Corps of Engineering which will help streamline Section 408 permitting and allows more flexibility for the Corps to work with local levee systems for system-wide flood risk management.
The bill received support from the Illinois & Missouri Rivers Association based in Quincy.