City council approves hiring engineering firms for levee work

The Decorah City Council Monday evening approved hiring the consulting firm of Mead & Hunt to handle some engineering studies to be submitted to FEMA as part of that federal agency's supervision of the Decorah levee system.

FEMA wants to know about Decorah's ability to adequately drain water from the interior area (town side of levee).  FEMA is requesting modeling of the ponding areas on both the city side and river side of the levee structures.

Mead & Hunt will charge the city $16,100 for reports on the area inside the levees and $12,300 for reports on the area outside the levee.  In addition, Mead & Hunt will be paid $18,000 for work involving next year's final report to FEMA about the levee system.

Another $2,500 to $4,500 of cost will be incurred with work done locally by Erdman Engineering to answer questions raised by Mead & Hunt.  City council member Steve Luse raised his concern about a price quote that was a range of prices and not a set price, but he was overruled by the six other city council members.