Water Resources

Before the Red Rock Dam and Lake Project near Des Moines, Iowa, began operating in 1969, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers purchased easements from landowners on 29,000 acres within the reservoir's boundary. The easements give the Corps the right to occasionally flood the easement lands when the dam is forced to hold back water upstream in the reservoir to prevent flooding downstream. Because of heavier-than-expected rainfall during the 1970s and 1980s, the easement lands were flooded more often than the Corps had estimated. In 1985, Congress authorized a buyout program for easement landowners who were willing to sell their land to the Corps; however, few owners have been interested in selling, and their complaints about flooding have persisted. This report (1) determines whether the property within the Red Rock reservoir's boundary has been inundated beyond the levels permitted by the easements; (2) recommends whether compensation for the easements should be renegotiated with landowners; and (3) reports on actions that the Corps has taken to implement the buyout program.

GAO found that: (1) the Red Rock easement documents do not specify a permitted flooding frequency, level, duration, or timing, only that the flooding would be occasional; (2) flooding has occurred on easement lands more frequently than the Corps estimated, and landowners believe that they should receive additional compensation for the easements; (3) Congress must decide whether additional compensation should be provided to the landowners, since the easement documents do not provide for renegotiating easement compensation if the flooding is greater than expected; (4) crop losses have exceeded easement payments by up to $2.3 million; (5) the Corps' long-term flooding estimates may have been too low; (6) too few years have passed since the beginning of the project to judge the validity of the flood-frequency estimates; (7) few landowners have sold their lands to the Corps, since they believe that the Corps' offered purchase prices are too low to allow them to buy comparable farmland; and (8) the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works believes that the Corps should consider leasing the lands back to those owners who are willing to sell.