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 U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
Levee Safety Program
 In
2006, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) created its Levee
Safety Program. The Levee Safety Program mission is to assess the integrity and
viability of levees and recommend courses of action to make sure
that levee systems do not present unacceptable risks to the
public, property and environment. The Corps subsequently
launched a major effort to:
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Create a levee safety organization;
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Build a National Levee Database (NLD) and inventory;
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Develop a
methodology for performing technical risk assessments of
existing levee infrastructure; and
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Review and revise current
related policies and procedures associated with levees.
Important concepts around which the
program is built include:
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The number one goal of the Levee
Safety Program is public safety;
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Levee safety and communicating
risk is a shared responsibility among federal, state, local
and private partners, and extremely important so that
individuals can participate in public safety decisions;
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The Corps levee safety program
provides continuous feedback about levee systems through
rigorous inspections and assessments.
With this in mind, the basic
objectives of the Corps' Levee Safety Program are:
1. Develop
balanced and informed assessments of this nation’s levees;
2. Evaluate, prioritize and justify levee safety decisions, and
3. Make recommendations to improve public safety associated
with levee systems.
In keeping with the engineering
profession’s code of ethics that holds public safety paramount,
key elements of the program include informing stakeholders of
the residual risks that remain with levees:
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Levees and levee systems do not
remove all flood risk.
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Levees can actually increase
flood risk.
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Other alternatives should be
considered to compliment levees and/or to replace levees in
order to maximize flood risk reduction in the long term.
In November 2007, the Corps established
its Levee Safety Organization at every level—headquarters,
divisions and districts. Positions at the district and division
include a Levee Safety Officer (LSO), who is the technical lead
for levee safety issues and decisions, and Levee Safety Program
Manager (LSPM), who is responsible for coordination and
implementation of the Levee Safety Program.
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Public safety is the NUMBER ONE priority of the
Corps' Levee Safety Program.
The program:
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Conducts inspections and assessments of
its approximately 2,000 levee systems;
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Evaluates, prioritizes and justifies
levee safety decisions;
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Incorporates changes and improvements
associated with state-of-the-art professional
engineering practice into its levee safety
policy and procedures; and
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Makes recommendations to improve public
safety associated with levee systems.
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Figure 1 illustrates
major aspects of the Levee Safety Program in the
context of integrated Flood Risk Management:
Click on Image to
Enlarge
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