Improvements to Decorah's levees could cost $350,000 to $450,000

The Decorah City Council on Monday night agreed to work with the Army Corps of Engineers on a checklist of required changes to Decorah's levee system.

The City of Decorah has been working with FEMA on a number of changes, including moving power poles out of the floodplains and cutting down trees in the floodplain.  But the Army Corps of Engineers is also involved in levee inspections.  On Monday night the Decorah City Council approved a System Wide Improvement Framework agreement with the Corps.

The agreement will give the City of Decorah two years to plan improvements to the levee system and then another two years to complete those changes.  Engineer Lindsay Erdman says the overall process could cost the city between $350,000 to $450,000, although most of the money will be spent in the last two years of the four year period.

Erdman says the largest expense will come in repairs that must be made to the upper part of The Cut, where erosion has led to some deterioration of the channel.  But he notes that while more work must be done to upgrade the levee system, "a tremendous amount of work has already been done."