The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday awarded a $12.9 million contract for the construction of a 3-mile setback of Missouri River Levee Unit L-575 opposite Nebraska City, Nebraska near Percival, Iowa.

The contract was awarded to Weston Solutions, Inc.  It includes an option for another 3/4-mile setback levee to the south of Highway 2 that will be awarded when necessary real estate actions have been completed by the levee sponsor.

The entire setback alignment will stretch from river mile 565 to river mil 561.5 on the Iowa side of the Missouri River in Fremont County. It will be offset from the original levee by up to several thousand feet.

This particular stretch of levee suffered excessive damage and seepage during the Flood of 2011.

“Because of the miles and miles of seepage we were seeing, we know that there’s a lot of damage to the subgrade of that levee,” said Bryan Flere, Omaha District’s levee safety coordinator.

“Because of extensive damage, an inline fix would be more expensive than the setback.”

Roughly 500,000 cubic yards of material will be used in the construction of the new setback alignment. The entire project is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

The new setback will return this portion of L-575 to its pre-flood status and level of flood risk reduction.