St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 8, 2011
By Terry Hillig

BENTON, Ill. • By the time the debate over Metro East levee  safety reached a judge’s desk in the U.S. District Court in Benton last week,  there wasn’t really a dispute left to litigate.

Federal officials had backed off, albeit barely, an assessment that the system  could no longer be trusted to keep out the Mississippi River. Local officials  were spared, if temporarily, the burden of development restrictions and  mandatory and high-priced flood insurance in the industrial heart of  southwestern Illinois…more

Examiner.com
August 4, 2011
By Ellen Cannon

Madison, St. Clair, and Monroe counties in Illinois breathed a sigh of relief  this week when The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a reprieve  to southwestern Illinois counties that were guarded by levees FEMA deemed  functionally useless. On August 3, 2011, U.S. District Judge J. Phil Gilbert  declared a lawsuit filed by the three counties as moot and chastised FEMA’s  handling of the levee improvement situation in southern Illinois. Judge Gilbert  stated in his fifteen page ruling, “that the levees of the American Bottoms are  accredited and have been accredited at all times relevant to the lawsuit.”…more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 3, 2011
By Terry Hillig

BENTON, Ill. • A federal judge has dismissed Metro East  officials’ challenge to the “de-accreditation” of levees that protect the  Mississippi River flood plain in Madison, Monroe and St. Clair counties…more

The Telegraph
July 29, 2011

WASHINGTON – The drive to delay implementation of new flood insurance  mandates for the Metro East continued this week on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the Senate Banking Committee to include  in its bill to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program a provision that  would require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to delay flood insurance  purchase requirements for communities – such as the Metro East – already  spending significant resources to improve their flood control  infrastructure…more