Big Bill for Levee Upkeep Comes to New Orleans In the busy and under-staffed offices of New Orleans' flood-control leaders, there's an uneasy feeling about what lies ahead. By the time the next hurricane season starts in June of 2013, the city will take control of much of a revamped protection system of gates, walls and armored levees that the Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $12 billion building. The corps has about $1 billion worth of work left. Engineers consider it a Rolls Royce of flood protection - comparable to systems in seaside European cities such as St. Petersburg, Venice, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Whether the infrastructure can hold is less in question than whether New Orleans can be trusted with the keys. The Army Corps estimates it will take $38 million a year to pay for upkeep, maintenance and operational costs after it's turned over to local officials. Local flood-control chief Robert Turner said he has questions about where that money will come from. At current funding levels, the region will run out of money to properly operate the high-powered system within a decade unless a new revenue source is found. "There's a price to pay for resiliency," the levee engineer said from his office at the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. We can't let pieces of this system die away. We can't be parochial about it. FILE - This Aug. 30, 2012 file photo shows the pumping station at the 17th Street Canal, built after Hurricane Katrina breached the canal and flooded New Orleans, with the intact canal wall after Hurricane Isaac came through the region. By the time the next hurricane season starts in June 2013, New Orleans will take control of much of a revamped protection system of gates, walls and armored levees the Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $12 billion building. Engineers consider it a Rolls Royce of flood protection, comparable to systems in seaside European cities such as Venice and Rotterdam. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, file) Close On Nov. 6, New Orleans voters were faced with one of their first challenges on flood protection when they voted on renewal of a critical levee tax. The tax levy was approved, meaning millions of dollars should be available annually for levee maintenance. Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California, said the region must find additional money to keep the system working properly. If you try to operate it and maintain it on a shoestring, then it won't provide the protection that people deserve. Many locals remain uneasy, even though Turner's agency is a welcome replacement for local levee boards that were previously derided. "It's scary," said C. Ray Bergeron, owner of Fleur De Lis Car Care, a service station in the Lakeview neighborhood where water rose to rooftops after levees collapsed during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Before Katrina, Bergeron said the local levee boards were complacent. They told everybody everything was fine, 'oh yeah, it's fine. Let's go have martinis and lunch.' After Katrina, the locally run levee boards that oversaw the area's defenses were vilified, and quickly replaced by the regional levee district run by Turner. Congressional investigations found the old Orleans Levee Board more interested in managing a casino license and two marinas than looking after levees. Inspections were ceremonial, millions of dollars were spent on a fountain and overpasses rather than on levee protection. And there was confusion over who was responsible for managing the fragmented levee system, U.S. Senate investigations revealed. Still, experts generally agree the old levee board's failings did not cause the levees to collapse during Katrina. Poor levee designs by the corps and the sheer strength of Katrina get the lion's share of the blame. Since the Flood Control Act of 1936, the Army Corps has given local or state authorities oversight of water-control projects, whether earthen levees in the Midwest or beach walls in New England.