An Ounce of Prevention… (Editorial)

The site of the Dardanelle Levee breach on the Arkansas River in July 2019. (Karen E. Segrave)

Arkansas has taken the first step toward addressing the state’s levee system, which is in poor repair and woefully underfunded. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this month announced what’s believed to be the state’s first full inventory of the levees, infrastructure that protects thousands of acres of land, millions if not billions of dollars in property and, sometimes, lives.

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture and the Army Corps of Engineers will work together to survey the system. The move comes after historic flooding in 2019 that breached levees and caused more than $3 billion in damage across Arkansas.

The crisis led then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson to appoint a task force that in 2020 presented a report with 17 recommendations for improved levee oversight. But as Arkansas Business detailed in August, it’s unclear how many of the recommendations have been implemented.

The inventory announced earlier this month is a first step to prepare Arkansas for future floods — and they will come — and reduce their risk to the state. But it’s just a first step. The hard and likely contentious part will come in identifying cost estimates and sources of funding to repair the levee system.

It does, however, signal an understanding that failing to address the issue now could lead to devastating losses later.