The $500 million question: Why repairing our levees keeps costing more

Updating flood maps in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA announced in 2007 that the five Metro East levees protecting the area since the 1940s were no longer adequate. Repairing the levees, county officials were told, would cost $120 million to $180 million. To meet the price tag, officials in Madison, Monroe and St. Clair counties set up an agency – the Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District Council – and a new sales tax to fund the project. But two years later, the estimates have soared. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the price tag could range from $300 million to $500 million.