53% of Arkansas’ levees Corps-listed as deficient
After floods in 2015, one now getting repairs
BIGELOW — If he had stood on his cropland about a year ago in the very spot his feet were now planted, John Gunther would have been up to his neck in water.
It’s November, and the 72-year-old farmer who is just under 6 feet tall is recounting how heavy rains in December 2015 flooded the Arkansas River, topped a broken levee and flowed onto his farmland in Bigelow.
Gunther lost 50 acres of wheat that year and harvested only 20 bushels of soybeans, compared with the usual 40. He and his wife, Joan, also had to move their 46 cows, two bulls and six calves to higher ground. Gunther said he didn’t have crop insurance and received only about $500 in government disaster assistance for his losses.
That flood — and another that preceded it in the spring of 2015 — weren’t the biggest floods the Gunthers remember. One in 1990 inundated highways and the Gunthers couldn’t get to Conway for a week because Arkansas 60 was covered in water.
But the 2015 floods, which also damaged the property
of a state senator and dozens of mobile homes in the area, were the ones that finally led to change for the faulty levee.
Legislation was passed in 2016 aimed at preventing another flood like Bigelow’s, but officials say it’s too early to assess its impact.
The Bigelow levee is just one among hundreds of deficient levees near major bodies of water across the country, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of federal inspection records.
Of the 66 Arkansas levees tracked in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Levee Safety Program, 35 — or 53 percent — are considered “unacceptable” by Corps’ standards, meaning deficiencies could prevent the levee system from functioning as designed during a flood. That’s a higher percentage than all of Arkansas’ neighboring states except Mississippi. Nationwide, 34 percent (890 of 2,592) of levees tracked and rated are considered “unacceptable.”
Unacceptable levees in the state include portions along the White River in east Arkansas, the Mississippi River in southeast Arkansas and the Arkansas River from Yell County south to Jefferson County. In Arkansas, 505 miles of levees are considered deficient, about the distance a car would travel from Little Rock to Gulf Shores, Ala.
The Corps’ National Levee Database reporting varies from district to district, and the data are incomplete. South Carolina doesn’t have any levees included in the database, and other states have fewer than five in the database.
Inspection records in Arkansas show many levees — typically earthen structures designed to protect against high water — are crossed by roads, pipelines and power lines, and have decayed culverts and malfunctioning floodgates.
Some are too close to farms and are damaged by cattle grazing on them. In many cases levees aren’t being mowed, which allows vegetation to become overgrown and weaken the foundations and obscure other features from inspection. The Bigelow levee had many of these problems.
The poor conditions of the 35 levees are the result of years — sometimes decades — of deferred maintenance and lack of oversight, said Elmo Webb, levee safety program manager for the Corps in Little Rock.
“It is a big number because you’re looking at half the levees in this state that’s basically unacceptable,” Webb said. “Should it be alarming? Yeah.”
Webb said it’ll be “years and years” before the 35 levees get back into shape.
The recently revived levee board for Perry County Levee District No. 1 is now spending more than $500,000 to ensure that the type of flooding that damaged homes and croplands in the area in 2015 doesn’t happen again.
In the first phase of work, the district repaired the floodgate and corroded metal pipe that had allowed water to wash underneath the floodgate and breach the levee.
The second phase will reconstruct about 2,000 feet of the levee that was damaged in 1990 and has been damaged since by high water, District President Jason Trantina said. That part of the levee failed to hold back water in 2015, despite being as tall as the rest of the levee. Water flowed over the top onto farmers’ fields and miles away into the neighborhood behind Trantina’s
Toad Suck One Stop on Arkansas 60.
Now, long-overdue construction is underway to address those problems.
The Gunthers surveyed the progress of the first phase of construction just days before Thanksgiving. Joan Gunther handed out bags of pecans from the family’s pecan trees to workers. Recalling the 1990 flooding, she pointed to the new pipe that workers planned to install at the floodgate.
“These are cement pipes, which should have been put in in the first place,” she said.
The Gunthers visit the construction site frequently and are glad to see something being done to improve the levee that failed them.
“Once we get this, we’ll be on easy street, ” said John Gunther, who now serves on the levee board.
LEVEE DISTRICTS, BOARDS
After the first round of flooding in 2015, Bigelow residents learned that their levee was deficient and that it lacked the oversight of a levee board.
Their levee wasn’t the only one. Similar failures occurred at the Skaggs Ferry levee in Randolph and Lawrence counties nine years ago, and the county judge in Randolph County had to ask state lawmakers to allow him to revive the levee board so the board could fix it.
Legislation requested by the county judge — passed in 2009, the same year a legislative audit report recommended more state oversight of levees — was limited to that particular levee district. Lawmakers passed no other bills that year related to levee oversight.
In 2015, in addition to the floods in Bigelow, there was a scare along the Red River involving a levee that the Corps had previously labeled “unacceptable.” That scare led to a town’s evacuation and more than $200,000 spent on measures to keep the town from flooding.
After that, lawmakers passed legislation in 2016 that allowed county judges to appoint board members in every levee district.
The legislation — sponsored by the Gunthers’ neighbor, state Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow — also requires county clerks to send annual levee district reports to the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. Previously, state law prevented the commission from overseeing levees.
Levee districts have always been required to send reports to their county clerks. The reports include the districts’ boundaries, board members and when they meet, but they do not detail the conditions of the levees.
The commission began receiving the reports in January, said Trevor Timberlake, engineer supervisor of the dam safety and flood management sector at the Natural Resources Commission. The commission has received perhaps 30 or more, he said.
The state, counties, the Corps and other federal agencies are working to determine if there are levees that the agencies don’t know exist. Timberlake said his staff had yet to determine whether the reports revealed any new levees or any re-formed levee boards other than Perry County Levee District No. 1.
County clerks may not get levee reports if a levee district is inactive, meaning the commission or county judges won’t be notified about some levees that may have fallen into disrepair, he said.
That’s what happened in Bigelow until 2015, when Rapert went searching for who was in charge of the levee.
As many as 28 deficient levees don’t have active boards, according to the Corps’ data. Some re-formed levee boards, like Perry County Levee District No. 1, may not have their now-active status updated in the database.
While the commission is getting reports, commission officials haven’t yet assessed what is being reported and how counties are addressing it, Timberlake said.
Rapert hasn’t evaluated the impact of his legislation, but he said all levels of government will need to do more to ensure levee soundness. Funding will be a particular challenge, he said.
“I’ll still be talking about these needs far into the future,” Rapert said.
NO MONEY FOR REPAIRS
The Corps last inspected the 6 miles of levee overseen by Perry County Levee District No. 1 on May 28, 1990, just after some major flooding.
The Corps found the southern part of the earthen levee “unacceptable,” noting damage from the 1990 flood and excessive animal burrows, trees and weeds. Roads atop the levee gradually compacted it by 2 feet. The Corps also found fence crossings, deficient flap gates, debris,
erosion and that part of the levee was 3 feet too low.
County officials estimate the district board disbanded in 1989.
Now, Perry County Levee District No. 1 is active again. It is relying on a $489,250 grant and a $489,250 loan approved in May from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission to fix the levee. Such funds are rarely provided to levee districts.
Perry County Levee District No. 1 doesn’t have a revenue stream, but it must get one so it can pay back whatever it uses of the loan, said Mark Bennett, commission water development division manager. Trantina, the levee district president, said he’s working on a property tax assessment to raise money.
This is the first time that the commission has tried to fund a levee improvement project entirely on its own — that is, without the federal government contributing most of the money, Bennett said.
The Arkansas Natural Resources Commission provided the money through its water development fund, which is mostly used to give grants and loans to water utilities. It hasn’t funneled money to a levee district since sending $20,085 to the White River Levee District in 2009. Before that, it gave districts money a few other times going back to 1974, around the start of the water development funding program.
Levees aren’t the top priority of the commission, which mostly has expanded access to running water across the state, Bennett said. So levees are funded “very rarely,” he said.
“That’s why they’re in such bad shape,” Bennett said.
Corps, Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service funds are often used in flooding emergencies and are available only to districts whose levees meet the particular agency’s standards.
According to Tony Batey — who is chief of the engineering and construction division, and the district levee safety officer for the Corps in Little Rock — the best way to maintain a sound levee is for the levee district to assess a millage on property owners to support it.
Getting a good levee safety rating takes money and manpower, he said.
“Ultimately, this is going to come down to a decision at the local level,” Batey said. “[The] first thing they’re going to be confronted with is: Where do we get the funds to make the corrections we need to make here?”
Rapert said he considers the poor conditions of U.S. levees a major infrastructure issue.
“Not only is it an Arkansas issue, it’s one of the No. 1 issues in American infrastructure,” Rapert said.
“It’s one of those things that until there’s a problem, everyone sort of ignores it,” he added.
The Corps does not track levee breaches.
The Democrat-Gazette contacted several county judges and levee district officials throughout Arkansas and found that for some levees that the Corps has deemed “unacceptable,” numerous instances of sand boils were reported. A malfunctioning floodgate at the 4-mile “unacceptable” levee in Roland in Pulaski County resulted in a home being flooded in 2015.
Sand boils, which aren’t considered levee breaches or failures, occur when water leaches from weak spots, eventually pushing through and leaking from the protected side of the levee.
Sand boils plagued the levee that protects Helena-West Helena several years ago. They weakened the levee in Miller County in 2015, resulting in the evacuation of the town of Garland. And because of them, residents had to work around the clock sandbagging along the White River in Prairie and Woodruff counties in the spring 2011.
The Delta Regional Authority, an economic development agency, gave about $500,000 to repair such weak spots in levees along the White River, and those protecting Des Arc and DeValls Bluff. The Corps still rated the Des Arc and White River levees as “unacceptable” in 2015.
The White River levee should be a foot higher, said Charles Dallas, county judge for Woodruff County, but the White River Levee District can’t afford to build it up.
“There’s no money out through the Corps of Engineers to fund and maintain these things,” said Mike Skarda, county judge for Prairie County. “That’s a major problem.”
CHRISTMAS FLOODING
The December 2015 flooding damaged 53 homes in Perry County, racking up a cleanup bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. FEMA contributed more than $400,000 toward the cleanup costs.
Baylor House, who was county judge for Perry County at the time, echoed the findings of the levee’s 1990 inspection: The levee wasn’t high enough in some places.
“That was devastating to us,” House said. “You know, we only have about 11,000 people in this whole county.”
Josefina Jacquez was among the homeowners whose property flooded. Jacquez; her husband, Paulino; and her youngest son, Benjamin, have lived since 1999 in a neighborhood of mobile homes less than a half-mile from the Arkansas River. Their home was spared in the 2015 spring flood, when water reached up to the steps of their home, but they weren’t as lucky in the December flood.
The Jacquezes were planning to celebrate a belated Christmas. Their oldest son, Leo, was flying in from Boston, where he was stationed in the Air Force. But on Sunday, Dec. 27, a sheriff’s deputy knocked on their door and advised them to evacuate. After two days of heavy rain, homes in the area were going to flood.
The next day, Josefina Jacquez and her family moved their clothing and four sons’ baby pictures to her sister’s house. They moved more belongings on Tuesday, but when they returned Wednesday, authorities wouldn’t allow them to drive into their neighborhood. There was no dry ground to walk on, and all the roads were flooded.
The Arkansas River had created a lake with some houses sticking up out of it, and the Jacquezes went by canoe to their home to fetch their two cats.
High water had ruined their Christmas tree and presents. It demolished $1,300 worth of ducts and heatingand air-conditioning units that Paulino Jacquez had just installed. The master bedroom, an add-on to the house and two stair steps down from the kitchen, was soaked. Water destroyed the carpet. The walls had to be replaced in the room that also served as Josefina Jacquez’s sewing studio, where she has crafted two wedding dresses, bridesmaids gowns and a mariachi dress.
“I told my husband I wanted a swimming pool, but not an indoor swimming pool,” she said recently, laughing. “You just have to make funny things out of it because it’s sad.”
The family spent three weeks cramped in the home of her sister, who has four children.
Paulino Jacquez told Josefina that he wanted to move because he’d had enough of the floods. He bought 4 acres near Greenbrier, off Pickles Gap Road, where he and Josefina plan to build a house with the help of their son Daniel, who has a bachelor’s degree in construction management.
“Hopefully, with God’s help, we’ll build that house,” she said.
The second phase of construction at the Perry County Levee District No. 1 could help prevent homes like the Jacquezes’ from flooding again, Trantina said.
A washed-out, 2,000-foot stretch of the levee will be built to a height of 278 feet above sea level. That won’t be high enough to prevent floods as big as the one in December 2015 — the district doesn’t have the money to build it 3 feet higher — but it will slow the flow of water and keep it from spreading so far, Trantina said.
High water will likely flood farmers’ fields again, but it won’t flow for miles into areas like the Jacquezes’ neighborhood.
“This is going to help them,” Trantina said earlier this month, surveying the 2,000 feet of levee that will be replaced.
“This will make a big difference.”