Meeting held on Milk River Levee

The Hill County Commissioners held a public meeting in Havre Thursday to educate the public about the Milk River Levee and how the county is going about making improvements to ensure they will be eligible for federal funding to repair it in the event of a flood.

Hill County Commission Chair Mark Peterson said that it will take money to upgrade the levee, but he hopes to minimize the cost to local taxpayers., saying the county will try to find grants to pay for the improvements. He added that the county has reached out to members of Montana’s congressional delegation.

“It’s just a process we are going to have to go through and be patient with us,” Peterson said. “We are kind of having a hammer on our head.”

Jonathan Weaver, a project engineer with Great Western Engineering Inc., a Helena firm hired by the county, gave a presentation.

The Milk River Levee is part of the Havre Flood Protection Project, authorized by Congress in 1944, that led to the construction of both the levee, which is maintained and owned by the county, and the Bull Hook Unit Dry Dam, maintained and owned by Havre.

Weaver said the project was authorized after flooding devastated Havre during a storm in 1938. Though it was authorized in 1944, it was after a flood pounded Havre in 1952, that project was funded. It was completed in 1957.

The levee consists of a right bank levee system and a left bank levee system, a handout distributed at the meeting says. The right bank is about 2.87 miles long and encompasses 700 acres. It starts at the railroad tracks below the Wahkpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump and ends up at Bill Baltrusch Construction on the east end of Havre.

The left levee bank is about 0.95 miles in length on the north side of the river and protects about 50 acres in North Havre.

Weaver said the levee in its current form has been deemed unacceptable by the Corps due to operations and maintenance deficiencies.

“I am not going to say they are major items, but they are items that the Corps of Engineers feel need to be addressed in order to bring the levee back into an active status,” Weaver said.

He said counties must meet standards put in place by the Corps to have active status and be eligible for federal funds to repair the levee to pre-disaster conditions should it sustain damage in a flood.

Weaver said that being considered inactive does not mean the levee will fail.

Some of the levee deficiencies include encroachments on the levee right of way, drainage culverts that extend beneath the levee that have been in place since the levee was built that need to be inspected, relief wells located on the dry side of the levee that need to be inspected and an adequate supply of sandbags to fill closures where the railroad cuts through on the east and west ends needs to be available.

Hill County Commission Chair Mark Peterson said buildings encroach on the levee’s right of way because people built without asking questions, or they are old and were built when regulations were less strict.

He said those structures will likely have to be removed or mitigated.

The county is taking several steps to make needed adjustments to get the levee system back to active status, he said. Peterson said the county is in the final stages of crafting a letter of intent which identifies concerns the Corps has with the current levee structure. Once the letter is completed, the county will craft a systemwide improvement framework outlining a plan to address the current deficiencies. When the framework is in place, the county will have two years to complete the work. During that period, the levee will be considered “provisionally active” and in the event of flooding will be able to request federal funds to rebuild the levee.

Weaver said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has separate standards for the levee that the county must meet. The FEMA standards usually focus on the soundness of the levee’s structure such as making sure the levee foundation is strong and that it is tall enough.

The Army Corp standards are to make sure the levee is maintained and operated in a way that it remains in the condition it was first built, he said.

A handout distributed at the meeting said the current FEMA flood maps for the city of Havre and Hill County have not been updated. When FEMA updates the flood maps, communities must provide documentation that the levees meet standards. If no documentation can be provided or the levees are found not to meet FEMA standards, the levEes will not be recognized as providing protection, the handout says.

“So basically, it will just be what FEMA likes to call a heap of dirt,” Weaver said.

If the levee does not meet FEMA standards, property owners with federally backed mortgages or loans will be have to buy flood insurance, the handout says.

Peterson said the challenge in making improvements to the levee will be finding the money.

He added that the county can only afford to spend about $35,000 in a given year on maintenance for both the left and right banks of the levee.

Money for levee maintenance is gathered from taxes a small number of property owners along the levee, north of the railroad tracks and south of the Milk River and eight to 10 businesses on First Street, he said.

Though he said it could cost as much as $1 million to make the improvements, Peterson said he does not think it will.