Change land use to hold back fury of floods, speakers urge

Des Moines Register: Iowa needs to revamp the landscape along its many rivers to soften the blow of future floods, a string of speakers said Monday at an Ames conference. "We need permanent land-use change, especially along the rivers," including clearing homes and crops from some areas, said Mark Ackelson, president of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.

Ackelson was among about 125 Iowa officials who met at Gateway Hotel and Conference Center to discuss how to lessen future flood damage and improve recovery.

Advertisement Ackelson said this summer's flooding renews previous calls to convert more farmland into natural areas and boost the ranks of farmers who join federal conservation programs that pay them to idle land. Many of the same swaths of farmland affected over the summer were also soaked in the floods of 1993.

Ackelson suggested using the state's bonding authority in the future to buy out homes in flood-ravaged areas, rather than have residents wait months to see whether they qualify for federal mitigation money. …Mary Skopec, who led the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' monitoring efforts in the aftermath of the floods, said it may be time to manage the problem "by watershed instead of by political boundaries." Otherwise, solutions could be short-sighted: The 7,785-square-mile Cedar River watershed reaches into Minnesota, she said….

Flood waters fill the streets of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 13, 2008. Department of Defense photo by Staff Sgt. Oscar M. Sanchez-Alvarez, U.S. Air Force.