"EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- When the Army Corps of Engineers declared last year that the levees here were 'unacceptable,' it kicked up a storm of protest from officials and residents of the broad Mississippi River flood plain known as the American Bottom."
"Local officials said the corps, shaken by the widespread destruction from levee collapses after Hurricane Katrina, had raised its safety standards to unreasonable levels, overstated the risk and heaped millions of dollars of unnecessarily expensive repair and insurance costs on the community.
Similar disputes have been playing out in a number of cities in recent years as the corps has declared 10 percent of the levees in a new database of 2,200 federal levee systems 'unacceptable,' including those protecting people in Dallas, Sacramento, St. Paul and Tulsa, Okla. About 80 percent are rated 'minimally acceptable,' with many of those under orders to correct problems or risk falling into the unacceptable category. Just 9 percent of the levees in the database have been declared 'acceptable.'"
John Schwartz reports for the New York Times February 4, 2012.
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