Army Corps of Engineers debris cleanup is no cost to Burke County

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers have had their hands full since Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina last fall.

Now, Burke County is giving them even more work to do.

The Burke Board of Commissioners voted to engage the corps to remove storm debris from the county’s waterways and private property at its pre-agenda meeting Monday afternoon.

Commissioners decided to go with USACE instead of hiring private firms because utilizing the corps will allow the county to ensure the work will meet Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) exacting standards, thus eliminating the county’s potential financial liability for the bill.

There is a tradeoff, however.

Even though USACE will do the work for free, the county will have no oversight of the project as it would with a private contractor. In addition, the corps works on its own schedule.

County Manager Brian Epley said the process begins when the county makes a request to the corps through the state Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

After that, it’s out of Burke County’s hands.

“We’re out at that point,” Epley said. “They don’t tell us when they’re coming. They don’t ask us where we’d like them to start. We don’t have a financial interest. If we have questions, certainly I don’t think it is so standoffish that we can’t get information, but it is not a county-led recovery effort, and I think that the financial exposure and the administrative oversight are the two fundamental differences between a private contract and the Army Corps.”

The wait may not be especially long, however. Epley said an Army representative he met with recently told him it would likely only be a few weeks to a month before the corps can get started.

Epley told the board all work that begins within 180 days of a storm is covered by the federal government. After that, the Fed typically covers 75% with local governments paying 25%.

But once damages hit $1 billion, the split becomes 90/10. Helene is expected to cost the state upwards of $60 billion, according to the state’s Office of State Budget and Management.

Epley said he has been told by Joe Stanton, the assistant director of recovery for N.C. Emergency Management, that the state plans to foot the bill for that 10% payment for all counties impacted by the hurricane.

“He feels confident of that, but that is not in writing,” Epley said. “We don’t have assurance of that.”

In order to assess the scope of the work, the county employed a drone pilot to photograph stretches of the Catawba River from the air. Using a standard rate of $25 per cubic yard of debris, the county estimated clearing the Catawba in Burke County would cost just less than $900,000.

“There are many more waterways in Burke County, so you have to apply that to scale,” Epley added.

Waterway removal involves taking out debris that could be hazardous to infrastructure and/or public safety during future weather events. Epley said that includes areas 1,000 feet upstream and downstream of infrastructure like bridges.

He added other WNC counties have almost exclusively opted for USACE over private companies for waterway debris removal.

In addition to waterways, the county is still faced with debris on private property.

Epley said FEMA’s Private Property Debris Removal (PPDR) program would allow the corps to conduct that work as well. Previously, all debris had to be placed in the right of way in order to be removed.

The PPDR program allows local and state governments to clear disaster-related debris from private property when it poses an immediate threat to public health and safety.

“We think that it makes a lot of sense, in talking to other experts in the industry and talking to our friends at the state, to pair waterway with private property,” Epley said, adding access to private property will be important along waterways as the cleanup progresses.

Epley said the rest of the county’s debris removal process is “substantially complete.” Approximately 255,000 cubic yards of storm debris have been removed since the hurricane swept through in late September.