Following years of experts calling for a more unified approach to managing the nations known 30,000 miles of levees (with estimations as high as 100,000 miles when considering known and unknown miles of levees) in 2014 Congress passed the national Levee Safety Initiative. The new national Levee Safety Initiative will promote consistent safety standards, establish levee safety guidelines and provide funding assistance to states for establishing participating levee safety programs. Levees are found in approximately 35% of the nation’s counties, with nearly two-thirds of Americans living in a county with at least one levee. The program is authorized at $79 million annually and will help cities across the country coordinate and properly manage this important infrastructure.
Congress Votes for Levee Safety
