Kanjorski praises levee system

It took more than twenty years following the devastation of Hurricane Agnes for the federal government to raise the Wyoming Valley levee, and nearly forty for the levee to be tested to its limit.

But now more than ever, it's clear the government's investment was worthwhile, former Democratic U.S. Congressman Paul Kanjorski said Friday.

“We probably dodged a bullet that probably would have cost the Wyoming Valley probably five, six billion dollars,” Kanjorski said. “...If those levees hold, there isn't one person in the Wyoming Valley who shouldn't just shout that the federal government did something good; that they built one hell of a levee system. We've got good, clear evidence that federal government, sometimes, does something right.”

Kanjorski, of Nanticoke, represented Pennsylvania's 11th District from 1985 to 2011 and was instrumental in convincing the federal government to raise the levee and in securing annual appropriations funding for the project.

Congress first authorized the project in 1986, during Kanjorski's first term in office, but ground was not broken on the project for a further 10 years, and it wasn't completed until 2002.

“It was a very long, drawn-out process that took 10 years,” Kanjorski said. “It wasnt until 1996 that I was able to get President Clinton down here to convince him that we needed it... It took more than 10 years after that to complete it, and every year it took millions of dollars in appropriations. I had to get those funds earmarked every year to get those funds.”

He added that sustained efforts of other legislators, including former U.S. Sen. Arlen Spector, former Pennsylvania Governor Robert P. Casey, and municipal leaders were also instrumental in that process.

At first, Kanjorski said, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers did not want raise the levees to protect the valley from a flood equal to that following Hurricane Agnes in 1972, but to only 38 feet, do to the corp's cost/benefit analysis of the project, but that local legislators were united in the opinion that it needed to provide protection for at least the 41-foot mark set after Agnes.

“We couldn't make it less than Agnes and end up having an Agnes,” Kanjorski said. “Today it would have topped the original projection of 38 feet. We clearly said no lower than Agnes protection.”

In addition to raising the height of the levee, plans to extend the levee to protect West Pittston were also proposed, and Kanjorski said he supported them, but the Corp of Engineers was skeptical. The municipality's leaders at the time also passed a resolution and residents signed a petition opposing the extension, which essentially killed that portion of the project.

Leaders of municipalities not protected by the levee, including Plymouth Township Supervisor chairwoman Gale Conrad and former West Pittston Mayor Bill Goldsworthy, on Friday criticized the project, claiming the raised levees made the waters rise higher in their communities by backing up the river's flow.

Kanjorski said the Army took that into consideration, and its analysis of the projects impact on other communities predicted the raised levees could cause the river to rise an additional 9 inches elsewhere.

“That extra 9 inches of water would not create sisngificant damage given the current situation, because that 5, 6, 10 feet (of water) were already there,” he said.

Funding for the levee project also included $30 million in mitigation funds for miscellaneous uses, which could be and were used to purchase homes in the most danger of flooding.

“To protect some of those homes over in Plymouth Township, and I have sympathy for those people, but it would cost millions of dollars to protect one home in Plymouth, and we just cant afford to do that,” Kanjorski said.

“Its not a perfect system,” he continued, “but it's far more sophisticated today in terms of protection. You have to remember when we got hit with Agnes, there was no Federal Emergency Management Agency. That was something I was very active in creating.”

Congressional appropriations funding, the kind that funded most of the levy raising project, has come under fire by some members of the Republican Party in recent years, and Republican legislators recently called for federal funding for the recovery from Hurricane Irene to be offset by spending cuts in other areas.

Both 11th District Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, and 10th District Rep. Tom Marino, R-Lycoming Township, said last week they support offsetting disaster-relief spending with budget cuts.

Kanjorski warned that playing politics with disaster relief could hurt the area in the long-run.

“The person who gets the money in Congress is the one who can make the loudest noise or the biggest bang,” Kanjorski said. “There are 435 priorities around the United States, and each one of those priorities has a Congressman.”

“I think there may be some that want to play politics and be philisophical with this issue, and they need to come off that,” Kanjorski continued. “We are in great need now of federal help, and if our Congressmen or Senators didn't get on board with help for other parts of the country that were dealing with disasters, we could be cut out.”