Posted on Fri, Dec. 14, 2007

Reichert: Levee trees have to go

By S. Heather Duncan - hduncan@macon.com

Macon Mayor Robert Reichert issued his first executive order Thursday: Get the trees off the city levee.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for inspecting the levee, had given the city until January 2008 to correct problems with the earthen embankment that helps protect Macon from floods. The city has made many improvements but has left hundreds of mature trees undermining the levee, corps inspections indicate.

Corps officials met with Reichert on Wednesday, his first day in office, to update him on the problems. Reichert said he understands that the corps will give the city one more year to remove the trees if action starts right away.

So Thursday, Reichert issued an order to the city's Public Works, Parks and Recreation and engineering departments, telling them to develop a plan for removing the trees.

"It's going to be expensive, but hopefully we can do it all in-house," Reichert said. He said he also plans to ask Bibb County to help with the work, which would include not only cutting down trees but digging their root systems out of the ground and filling in the holes.

As recently as last week, the corps indicated it would decertify the levee if its problems had not been fixed within a month. Decertification could drive up flood-insurance costs for properties behind the levee, including buildings downtown.

Corps officials did not return calls seeking information about the outcome of the Macon meeting.

An October inspection by the corps gave the levee a rating of "minimally acceptable, maintenance required." While acknowledging the city has made progress to correct some deficiencies, the remaining problems "continue to present an increased risk to the public interest," according to a letter from Stanley Clark, chief of the Navigation Management Branch for the corps' Savannah district.

The corps doesn't allow trees on levees because if they tip over in heavy winds and rain, their root systems can pull out large chunks of the bank, creating spaces for water to cross inside.

Danny Tavakol, director of the city engineering department, said last week that Macon had held off on removing the trees because it has asked the corps to study abandoning a large portion of the levee, which might make most of the tree removal unnecessary. The corps would conduct the study with department funding, but the city would have to chip in half the costs after the first $100,000 was spent. No one knows what the study would cost, but most studies with this kind of scope cost more than $1 million, according to the corps.

Although Congress has given the corps permission to pursue the study, the city still doesn't have the money to pay for its share, Reichert said. He noted that it could be months or years before the federal funding is even finalized. That's why he wants to push ahead with the tree removal.

"We're trying to show the corps that we are responsive," he said.

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To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.

Posted on Wed, Dec. 12, 2007

Ocmulgee levee problems subject of scheduled meeting today

By S. Heather Duncan - hduncan@macon.com

Almost a year ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave Macon one year to fix problems with its levee. The largest portion of that work, the removal of hundreds of mature trees from the earthen embankment, has not been done.

Corps and city officials are scheduled to meet today to discuss the levee.

Stan Clarke, chief of the navigation branch operations division for the corps, indicated in an e-mail last week that "all deficiencies must be corrected by January 2009," or the levee that protects Macon from floods will be decommissioned. That could drive up flood insurance costs for properties behind the levee, including buildings downtown.

But Danny Tavakol, head of Macon's engineering department, said he understood that the corps was giving the city a two-year reprieve until a study of the levee can be completed.

That study, requested by Macon and Bibb County, was authorized by Congress last month, said Sheridan Watson, press secretary for Sen. Johnny Isakson. Isakson served on the conference committee for the bill.

The study would be conducted by the corps. Half the cost would be funded through an internal corps program, but Macon would still have to pony up the other half, said Rashida Banks, a public affairs specialist for the corps. Although the scope of the study hasn't been determined, similar studies have cost more than $1 million, she said.

The city is responsible for maintaining the levee, and the corps is responsible for building and inspecting it.

Former Mayor Jack Ellis expressed interest in a levee study for years, but none materialized because the financially strapped city hasn't been able to scrape together the matching funds. It's unclear what might be different this time.

Ellis traveled to Washington last week to meet with a corps official. Afterward, through his spokesman, Ron Wildman, Ellis said he believed the funding was arranged. According to Wildman, Ellis declined to say who he met with. Clarke said he didn't know who met with Ellis or what was discussed.

The proposed study would consider whether the levee could be shortened, perhaps by about two-thirds, Tavakol said. When the modern levee was built about 50 years ago, it protected many businesses in a bustling southern industrial district, he noted. But now most of those are gone, leaving mostly brick yards, a sewage treatment plant, a dump and polluted empty land.

"We don't think the levee needs to be almost 6 miles long," Tavakol said.

If a large portion of the levee is abandoned, floodwaters can be absorbed by land south of the city, relieving some of the pressure on the remaining levee and probably requiring less work on it. The part of the levee that separates downtown from the west bank of the Ocmulgee River is the portion in the best shape.

Many of the large trees that need to be removed are on the southern levee. "If we're going to shorten the levee, there's no point in spending millions of dollars to remove trees," Tavakol said.

The corps doesn't allow trees on levees because if they tip over in heavy winds and rain, their root systems can pull out large chunks of the bank, creating spaces for water to cross inside.

Tavakol said the city completed a levee management plan in March that called for only routine maintenance, and that the corps approved it. However, Banks said the corps requested additional information before approving the plan, and the city has not provided it.

Tavakol said Macon has improved maintenance of the levee in the meantime, removing small bushes and brush, grassing slopes and filling in eroded areas. He said the city had not received a report on its October inspection, but inspectors verbally acknowledged the improvements.

Banks said the results of the inspection were similar to previous inspections. The inspection report is public information under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Last week, she said a copy of the inspection would be provided to The Telegraph at the beginning of this week. Tuesday, she said the corps would not release it until after meeting with city officials today.

The corps has criticized the city's levee maintenance for years but never done anything about it. Finally, after a round of inspections following Hurricane Katrina, the corps indicated in January that Macon's levee was the only major one in Georgia that was in such bad shape it might not hold back floodwaters.

That's when the federal agency first openly threatened to withdraw its guarantee that the levee can hold back a 100-year flood. Such a flood has a 1 percent chance of happening each year and can happen multiple times in a century.

To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.