Lawmakers Meet With Trump Budget Director To Discuss Flood Prevention

March 28--Members of Iowa's congressional delegation met with President Donald Trump's budget director Monday morning to discuss funding the Cedar Rapids flood mitigation project.

Republican Sens. Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst met with Office of Budget Management director Mick Mulvaney, along with U.S. Rep. Rod Blum of Iowa.

Blum, a Republican, represents Iowa's 1st Congressional District, which includes Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Waterloo.

The city of Cedar Rapids is seeking $73 million from the federal government to help with its $600 million flood mitigation project.

Even though money was allocated for the project in the 2014 Water Resource Development Act, under the current funding structure, Ernst said Cedar Rapids was unlikely to ever see results from that bill because of the benefit-to-cost ratio in the legislation.

The formula is skewed toward projects on land with high property values, largely excluding much of the Midwest in favor of the east and west coasts.

"We somehow need to bifurcate the amount of money spent in a year, take a piece of it and dedicate it to rural areas, smaller MSAs (metropolitan statistical area) that are not going to have the same types of property values that the big ones do," Blum said during a conference call with reporters Monday morning. "Because we'll never come to the top of the list if that remains the policy."

Since Cedar Rapids experienced a "devastating" 500-year-flood in 2008, local, state and federal officials have been calling on the government to help Iowa's second-largest city with flood control.

"I think the discussion overall was very beneficial," said Ernst. "I think we have an administration that is listening to the challenges that we face throughout the Midwest. We were able to lay down a very convincing argument for the director. He does understand where we're coming from and I'm very hopeful we can make some changes."

Because President Trump has voiced support for $1 trillion to be spent on infrastructure projects nationwide, Iowa's delegation said they hoped to see movement on the Cedar Rapids project and others in the 2018 budget, taking effect Oct. 1

"We'll keep pushing on the budget issues," said Ernst, who noted dollars awarded to four of the last five major infrastructure projects, with similar benefit-cost ratios to the Cedar Rapids project, went to California. "This is going to be quite the process but I will tell you that we do have the ball moving and hopefully it will move in our direction.

Burlington will begin work on its $28.9 flood mitigation project this summer, immediately following the Steamboat Days festival in June, said city planner Charlie Nichol.

The first phase will cost about $7 million to complete, which includes installing a permanent flood wall from the U.S. 34 overpass south past Memorial Auditorium, and aesthetic improvements to the area between Memorial Auditorium and the Port of Burlington.

Initial costs were estimated at about $5.6 million, but Nichol said the price increased to $7 million when geotechnical work was completed and they discovered a new foundation wall needed to be constructed instead of tying the foundation of the flood wall into the existing riverfront wall, as they originally planned.

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