Risks and Approach of Private Infrastructure on Public Levee ROW

Levee sponsors that operate federally authorized levee systems are tasked with the job of working with USACE to manage risk to their levee systems. Levee systems frequently intersect with other public and private infrastructure that levee sponsors are not generally responsible for maintaining. Due to the intersection with the levee, the levee sponsor is now thrust into a position where they have a duty to verify compliance for the purposes of reducing risk of life safety. Private infrastructure that parallels or intersects the public levee ROW without clear divisions of responsibility can present operational and USACE PL 84-99 program compliance challenges. In the USACE Engineering Circular (EC) 1165-2-218 USACE Levee Safety Program, USACE documents general expectations on levee risk communication and risk management that are accomplished by partnering with local levee sponsors. While risk communication and risk management may look different for USACE and for the local levee sponsor, local levee sponsors have best practices that have proven useful in tackling existing conditions that may introduce risk to their levee systems, such as at locations with private infrastructure intersections. The purpose of this presentation will be to describe two examples of one levee sponsor’s active risk management and risk communication with private landward property owners with private infrastructure within public levee ROW. The presentation will review these two examples and show how the communication, management of the expectations, and coordination with the property owner resulted in modifications that resulted in reduced risk for the levee sponsor as well as a better understanding of levee purpose by the landward property owners.