Glasgow Levee Panel Making Progress

It's been a few years in the making, and it could be a few more years until a final plan is complete. The Glasgow Levee Committee has been working over the last year on creating a System-Wide Improvement Program (SWIF) policy that will help address several of the issues with the local Levee.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has made a few visits to Glasgow to work with the committee and see in person the issues of encroachments along the Levee line.

A new chair for the committee was put into place recently, Tanja Fransen, who works for the National Weather Service in Glasgow and has been attending all the meetings with the committee over the last year. Last week the committee was able to send another finalized version of the SWIF to the corps for approval. It was sent off Thursday, Jan. 15, and it was expected that they would hear back by early spring on whether or not it would be approved.

The committee was able to get a crew to videotape pipes along the Levee and several improvements, such as removing trees and shrubbery along the Levee, have already taken place. The bigger issues of the Levee will cost big bucks, probably in the millions.

The Levee committee discussed a grant opportunity that they would pursue to help pay for some of the improvements needed. It very likely will take over a decade to make all the improvements required. The committee is hoping to conduct a risk analysis and a feasibility study to help decide what different approaches they could take to fix encroachment issues, like buying up property, or moving a Levee would be a better decision.

Great Northern Development has stepped in to help with the process, and they're looking at helping with the grant funding that may possibly be available. The committee will continue to meet up to discuss solutions and find out all the costs that might be associated with all the improvements expected.

A push to finish the project is due to the fact that if a breach in the Levee occurs, after a rating of unacceptable, money to repair the Levee that might come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency wouldn't funnel to Glasgow's Levee. It would also mean that the entire south side of town would be required to obtain flood insurance.

Negotiations and changes on the proposed SWIF plan is expected to take place over the next year.