Mayor Fenty’s office sent out a press release on Wednesday to announce that the District will spend $2.5 million to improve the 17th Street levee. As you may recall, the Federal Emergency Management Agency proposed new flood maps in January to include an area in Southwest Washington from the Lincoln Memorial to Fort McNair. The change would have required many private property owners to purchase mandatory flood insurance, but FEMA recently agreed to delay implementation of the new maps. The city hopes the plan will prevent insurance premiums from spiking in the proposed flood plain.

“We’re taking immediate action to reduce the health and safety risk to the citizens, businesses, structures and institutions in the District,” Mayor Fenty said in a statement. “And it is critically important that we move through this process in lockstep with our federal partners.”

Details have yet to be hammered out, but Fenty’s office is estimating the design and construction of improvements to the levee system will take 15 months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Capital Planning Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, the District Department of the Environment, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development and the Office of Planning and the Commission on Fine Arts will all be involved in the process.

Photo by LaTur