McCollum tours Newport levee as city preps for river's rise
Newport city officials warn Mississippi River almost certain to spill over levee as Congresswoman visits her flood-prone district
- U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum toured a muddy, endangered levee with Newport officials Friday, one stop on a whirlwind tour of the flood preparations underway in her east metro congressional district.
Newport Mayor Tim Geraghty and Public Works Supervisor Bruce Hanson briefed the St. Paul Democrat, whose district includes Newport, on the danger that predicted near-record Mississippi River flooding poses to the sandy, poorly maintained private levee that protects around a dozen homes from high waters.
McCollum also visited a levee in South St. Paul and made two stops in St. Paul at a flood command center and the Holman Field airport.
River levels are expected to reach flood stage next week, the National Weather Service predicted in its latest forecast. And Hanson warned on Thursday that, based on current forecasts, he expects flood waters to spill over the levee during the first or second week of April.
“It’s gonna happen,” he said, citing current models that predict between an 80 to 90 percent chance that the Mississippi will reach an elevation of at least 700 feet — the highest point of the levee.
Local state lawmakers Sen. Katie Sieben, DFL-Cottage Grove, and Rep. John Kriesel, R-Cottage Grove, have proposed bonding state funds to help purchase properties near the levee that would be in immediate danger should floodwaters breach the dike that was haphazardly constructed following historic flooding in the late-1960s. Gov. Mark Dayton has also expressed support for the measure.
Federal assistance is unlikely, though, McCollum said Friday.
But even a successful legislative effort to help mitigate Newport’s levee situation won’t aid homeowners near the river this spring.
The city of Newport passed a motion in 2004 declaring it would not sandbag the levee because of safety concerns. The floodwall, weakened by the root systems of hundreds of trees growing out of it and animals burrowing through it, turns mushy when saturated, City Administrator Brian Anderson has said. That makes it too unsafe, city officials say, to mass volunteers atop it like in 2001, when thousands of sandbags and hundreds of volunteers held back record floodwaters.
Tags: news, updates, newport, minnesota, government, flood
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