Public safety is the Corps’ number one priority. To reduce flood risks, improve public safety, and communicate to local levee sponsors and the public the overall condition of levee systems and recommended actions, the Corps has created a more comprehensive and rigorous levee inspection process under its Levee Safety Program.
Projects in the Corps’ program include: levees owned, operated, and maintained by the Corps; levees designed and built by the Corps then turned over to a local sponsor to operate and maintain; and levees designed and built by a non-federal entity that have been accepted into the Corps’ Rehabilitation and Inspection Program. There are many miles of private-party, federal, state, and local levees outside the Corps’ inspection program. Presently, there is no universal oversight of levees in the nation.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District awarded an Indefinite Deliver, Indefinite Quantity contract not to exceed $2.4 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funding to HNTB-GERICK River Solutions JV of Chicago, to conduct Periodic Inspections of federally and non-federally constructed levees accepted into the District’s Rehabilitation and Inspection Program.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $90 million for the Corps to conduct Periodic Inspections of levees covered by the Levee Safety Program. Private-sector contractors will accomplish in approximately two years the same Periodic Inspections that would have taken five or more years to complete. Contractors, in cooperation with levee districts and local project sponsors, will independently inspect and evaluate approximately 100 levee systems totaling more than 750 miles within the Rock Island District’s 78,000-square-mile mission area.