Top Leaders To Attend Levee Summit

Dozens of local, state and congressional decision-makers will gather with regional levee district leaders today to strategize on how to tackle major obstacles to planned hurricane protection system improvements.

Levee officials have said a key challenge to a higher level of hurricane protection by the 2011 deadline is the match -- an estimated $1 billion or more -- that Congress and the Bush administration are requiring of the state and levee districts.

Other issues involve private property rights and public safety, including how to get all the land needed to build expanded levees and flood walls and where to find the 145 million cubic yards of clay that the Army Corps of Engineers estimates are needed to do the work.