(Spencer)– Plans are in the works for an updated comprehensive study of the Little Sioux River. Spencer City Manager Kevin Robinson says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which would oversee the project, held a conference recently with cities along the river…
“What they will do is they will provide the communities on the Little Sioux River what’s called a cost benefit analysis, a CBA. What that means is to apply say for berm mitigation or protection of our community, the CBA, the cost benefit analysis, is the key variable that we have to be able to show on our application of how much property will be protected and then measured back against whatever the cost and the engineering of the actual project is. So that formula ratio is really what determines at the federal level if projects get funded or not.”
Robinson says the study hinges upon the Corps of Engineers receiving federal funding for it…
“They’re conditionally approved right now. Final approval will come from Congress around August, then the work starts in April of ’27. It’s a year long. It concludes in April of ’28. Then they need to formulate that, publish it back to the communities, so we would get that data mid 2028 and then we would be looking at 2029-2030 applications.”
Robinson says the last time a study similar to this was done on the Little Sioux River was 1971.
