Levee Safety Coalition Susan Gilson, NAFSMA; Theresa Engler, DFI; Lori Spragens, ASDSO; Natalie Mamerow, ASCE; Del Shannon, (Barnard Construction) rep. USSD; Scott Raschke (Schnabel Engineering) rep. USSD; and Emily Feenstra, ASCE On June 26, U.S. Levee Safety Coalition representatives met with both House and Senate appropriators. The House meeting was to express the group’s thanks for the increased funding for the National Levee Safety Program and reinforce the importance of completing the inventory of federal and non-federal levees while the Senate meeting was to “ask” that the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and Subcommittee on Homeland Security provide the program with funding that meets the full $79 million authorization. The coalition is a group that has joined together to support and advance levee safety in the USA. DFI, along with ACEC, ASCE, ASDSO, NAFSMA and USSD, make up the coalition membership. All member organizations were represented at these meetings, with the exception of ACEC, who contributed to the planning in advance. The time spent with the House and Senate was successful and worthwhile in that the appropriations staffers indicated their understanding of the program and through their questioning showed their interest in the need for the funding. Also, the timing of the meetings was optimal in that it was soon after the massive flooding in the Midwest U.S. in May and June, where much flooding was caused by levee failures. The coalition’s representatives came back with the action item of meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to get a better understanding of how much funding can reasonably be utilized within its resource capacity, both internal and external via the AEC community, in FY20. That meeting was held on August 12 at the USACE Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., and may be reported on at a later date. As background, the National Levee Safety Program was authorized in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) of 2014 (PL 113 – 121 Sec. 3016) to promote consistent safety standards, create levee safety guidelines, and provide funding assistance to states and regional districts for establishing participating levee safety programs. America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 reauthorized the program through FY23 (PL 115 – 270 Sec. 1144). To date, USACE has been able to inventory 13,700 miles of levees under its authority and another 15,400 miles of levees maintained by other federal, state or local agencies in the National Levee Database (NLD), however there is much work to be done in inventorying and determining the location and condition of all the levees outside of USACE’s authority. As levees play a critical life safety role, we impressed upon the appropriators at these meetings that fully appropriating the program at $79 million would play a crucial role in protecting people, communities, critical infrastructure systems and trillions of dollars of property. To learn more about the U.S. Levee Safety Coalition, visit https://damsafety.org/levee-safety. DEEP FOUNDATIONS • SEPT/OCT 2019 • 55
