Budget cuts force an Iowa county to abandon ‘gold standard’ flood warning system

DECORAH, Iowa (KCRG) - When Sean Snyder shut down a flood gauge in Kendallville last year, his phone rang. A neighbor who lives in a flash flood zone wanted to know if the warning system was gone.

“They got relief just knowing that I didn’t just shut it off. I replaced it with something else,” said Snyder, Winneshiek County’s emergency management coordinator.

Snyder said flooding from two major rivers is the biggest threat the county faces. For years, he relied on federal stream gauges run by the U.S. Geological Survey. But state budget cuts and rising costs mean he can no longer afford the federal gauges.

Federal gauges too expensive

“Just last year alone, I did end up decommissioning two of the USGS river gauges in Lime Springs and Kendallville, and I replaced them with a bridge sensor,” Snyder said. “It’s a one-time cost.”

That replacement comes from the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa. The sensor measures water levels in real time, giving Snyder the early warning he needs before a flood hits.

He said he turned to the solution after he was priced out of a federal gauge.

“It’s about $9,000 from start to finish to have a Flood Center sensor installed, but it’s a one-time fee,” Snyder said. “Whereas USGS require, I’m up to about $22,500 a year for the two gauges that I pay every year.”

Iowa system fills monitoring gaps

Larry Weber, director of the Iowa Flood Center, said its 270 gauges monitor hundreds of small streams across Iowa that federal gauges don’t cover.

“So nearly tripling the number of monitoring locations that the USGS had previously had to provide more information and early warning to communities,” Weber said.

Weber said Iowa is the only state in the country with a system like this — built after the devastating 2008 floods. He said its gauges fill the gaps as federal budgets shrink.

“When a community simply can’t afford a partner agreement with the USGS and a gauge is going to be removed, then we certainly want to come in and provide flood information to them,” Weber said.

He said he’s heard directly from Iowans what that can mean.

“When we’ve had citizens that have come up to us and said, you know, ‘Your sensors and information system saved my life,’ we know we’re doing our work,” Weber said.

Now, he said several other states have contacted him to find out how they can do it, too.

Snyder said he’ll discuss decommissioning his county’s last two federal gauges to replace them with gauges from the Iowa Flood Center. He said this could save an extra $22,500 a year, which would mostly go toward insurance costs.