Missouri River Flood Protection Might Be Retained

Some Iowa officials say they’d like to keep in place temporary dikes, berms and levees that were hurriedly built to protect people and property from Missouri River floodwater.

Woodbury County emergency management director Gary Brown says local governments and private industry would have to spend more money to remove the structures. And they would have to pay to erect them in the future in the face of a new flood threat.

Brown says his county is working with regulatory agencies to retain the structures.

Sioux City television station KTIV says regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency require permits for such structures.

Massive amounts of water have been released into the river from dams upstream. Those releases will keep the river high in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa into fall.

Information from: KTIV-TV