In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers undertook an inventory of levees which it maintains or helps to fund. It recently completed that inventory, and the results spell trouble for Illinois. The AP reports that many local levees reviewed by the corps could not guard against serious flooding:

In Missouri and Illinois, nine levees that are supposed to protect against a 500-year flood fall short of even 100-year protection [...] Just getting those levees up to standard would cost an estimated $200 million.

Just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis is the Wood River levee in Illinois, which protects a ConocoPhillips refinery. Flooding there could spell an environmental and economic disaster.

Water seeped through the levee in 1993, but it held. Levee district commissioner Leroy Emerick worries that the next big test might not go as well.

But the news gets worse. The corps only examined those levees under its jurisdiction. Thousands of private levees (or "farm levees") that protect residential, commercial, and agricultural land were not investigated. The corps has no idea how many of these levees actually exist, much less what condition they are in. Meanwhile, Congress has ordered the corps to learn more about these privately-built flood walls, but has not yet funded the project.

This should cause particular concern in the Midwest which has already been hit by severe flooding this year. Nineteen Illinois counties were declared state disaster areas after floods wreaked havoc in the southern part of the state in March. So far this year has been the third wettest in state history.