Add another season to the higher than normal levels on the Missouri River.

Flows on the Missouri River are likely to remain higher than normal into the winter, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps expects to continue releases from Gavins Point Dam at 70,000 cubic feet per second — about double normal — “for the foreseeable future,” said John Remus, chief of the Missouri River Basin Water Management Division for the corps.

And once the agency starts dropping down from that level, the decrease won’t be dramatic, he said.

“It’s fair to say we’re going to see very high flows through the end of November,” Remus said. “Very high” likely means more than 55,000 cubic feet per second “and quite possibly more,” Remus said.

Wintertime releases from Gavins Point might not drop below 20,000 cfs, and may be higher, Remus said. Normal wintertime releases are 17,000 cfs, he said.

Runoff from snow and rain is on pace to make this the second highest runoff year in 121 years of record-keeping, according to the corps. And even though all the snow has melted, not all of the melt had reached the reservoirs as of late last week, Remus said. As a result, the reservoir system was still climbing toward its peak storage amount, Remus said.

Until the system reaches its peak, the corps won’t know how much water it has to discharge from the dams, he said.

The corps has been under pressure to release more water from the reservoirs than normal, and Remus said the agency has studied whether it can do that this year. It did so following 2011’s flood year, which was also historic and devastating.

“We are considering that,” Remus said. “But considering the amount of water we have in (the reservoirs) right now and the discharges it would take to evacuate the flood pool, I don’t think that’s a real possibility. Until we see the system peak we can’t say one way or the other.”

So far, the peak amount of water being stored behind the six massive dams is hovering around 68.5 million acre-feet, Remus said.

In deciding whether to empty more water than normal from behind the dams, the corps has to consider the potential negative effects downstream, Remus said. Keeping river levels high could affect levee repairs, and, should autumn rains be higher than normal, then corps releases will compound any problems from heavy rain runoff. The levee system downstream of the dams has been severely compromised by this year’s flooding, and the system won’t be repaired to preflood condition for several years, the corps has said.

The last time the corps evacuated extra water, in 2011, Nebraska had its hottest, driest year on record in 2012.

Repairs will start soon on levees protecting Offutt, sewage treatment plant

Now that the most critically damaged levees on the Missouri River — all on the Iowa side — have been repaired, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is making its first major repair on the Nebraska side.

This week, the corps hopes to award a contract to repair the damaged levees built to protect Offutt Air Force Base, the Omaha metro area’s primary sewage treatment plant and other infrastructure north of the juncture of the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Two levees totaling 18.3 miles are involved.

Historic flooding occurred this spring — damage in Nebraska is believed to be the costliest on record — when the Missouri River and its tributaries surged out of their banks following a storm that unleashed a torrent of rain and snowmelt.

If this contract is awarded as planned, work should begin in mid-August and be completed two to three weeks later, said Matt Krajewski, readiness branch chief for the Omaha district of the corps. The cost of the work won’t be known until the bids are reviewed and the contract approved.

The most serious damage to one of those levees, the 8.63-mile levee known as R613, already has been repaired by the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District. It protects Missouri River bottom land sandwiched between the Platte River on the south and the Papillion Creek on the north.

The upcoming contract will complete the work needed to bring that levee back to preflood conditions as well as fix damage to its companion — a 9.67-mile levee known as R616-613 that protects property north of the Papillion Creek, chiefly Offutt and the Papillion Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Once the corps repairs the levees, the NRD will begin the long-awaited project to raise the levees so that they will better protect Offutt, the sewage plant, transportation corridors and adjacent property. Devastating floods in 2011 and now 2019 have underscored the need for better protection in that area.

“The NRD is extremely appreciative of the efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for prioritizing the levee repairs and responding rapidly to our requests in order to protect Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha’s wastewater treatment plant and the surrounding communities,” John Winkler, NRD general manager, said last week.

The NRD-led improvements to the levees are expected to cost $32 million to $35 million, according to Paul Woodward, groundwater management engineer for the NRD. Most of that work should be done by 2020 — with a caveat, he said.

“As delays continue due to high water and the corps completing necessary repairs after the flood, it is likely that final completion of the levee improvements won’t occur until early 2021,” Woodward said.

The improvements will raise the levees 1 to 3 feet and widen them 2 to 4 feet.

The NRD says it thinks those improvements will protect Offutt and the sewage treatment plant from flooding like that of last spring and will eliminate the need for the herculean effort undertaken in 2011 to save the sewer plant and Offutt.

The levee improvements are being funded by the NRD, the State of Nebraska, the Cities of Omaha and Bellevue and Sarpy County.