Today, Rep. Cindy Axne (IA-03) applauded the new agreement reached by the City of Hamburg and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to raise the Hamburg Ditch 6 levee system by eight feet, a critical step to protecting the flood-damaged city from future risk.
The deal was reached using the Section 1176 authority provided by the Water Resources Development Act of 2020, bipartisan legislation that Rep. Axne helped become law last year.
“I am pleased to see the bipartisan flood control legislation I fought for last year form the groundwork for this breakthrough agreement with the Army Corps and City of Hamburg to raise the levee system that will protect their community from the risk of future floods,” said Rep. Axne. “I saw firsthand the devastation that the 2019 floods brought to Southwest Iowa, including the preventable harm inflicted on people of Hamburg. As we near the two year anniversary of those floods, this new agreement is a reminder of how much work there is still to be done to rebuild and prevent future damage.”
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, this is the first project in the U.S. to utilize the Section 1176 authority to raise the height of a federal levee system.
After devastating floods hit Hamburg in 2019, Axne introduced bipartisan legislation to provide the Army Corps with new authority to cut through red tape and provide federal funds for levees in repeated flooding communities.
Rep. Axne also shared the story of Hamburg’s flooding, communication and planning difficulties with the Army Corps authority in testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
After securing $3 billion for Midwest flood recovery in last year’s federal disaster bill, Rep. Axne has been tracking funding provided to Iowa to help rebuild from last year’s flooding with her Iowa Flood Funding Tracker.
Original source can be found here.
