8# - Investigative Journalism

In 2017, a storm came to five states in the Midwest and while this would normally be a normal weather event the storm stayed and flooded the area. Roads, rail, and river all closed. Residents all over the area fortified homes that had not been flooded with assistance from the National Guard. At the end of it, the damage totaled $1.7 billion and a human cost of five lives.

Elkhart, Indiana

In the aftermath of that event ProPublica along with Reveal from The Center of Investigative Reporting and the Telegraph of Alton, Illinois published a story the revealed a lobbying group called the 408 Coalition and their efforts to remove regulation from the levee system. The regulation they seek to remove is the Section 408 permit which is an authorization the Army Corp of Engineers give to a district if they want to raise their levee and determine if this would be "injurious to the public interest". The 408 Coalition see this as Federal overreach and wish it to be replaced with the 1944 statue that leaves out the part about "public interest".

Who is the 408 Coalition? Well that was difficult seeing as how the Coalition has no public records or website and the organization itself does not keep records. It took a guess from a Telegraph of Alton, Illinois reporter to guess that the Sny Island Levee Drainage District who has ignored the regulation in the past, might be involved and upon further investigation this turned out to be true. Not only were Sny involved they were the Coalitions largest contributor and brought at least 22 other local drainage districts from Missouri and Illinois into the fold. 

Rep. Garrett Graves

With all of the districts banding together it is not surprising to learn the 408 Coalition has spent $230,000 lobbying and that is just what has been officially reported to congress, with reporters discovering $98,000 being spent by individual districts. This allowed for the Coalition block two amendments in the water resources bill, one of which was written by Louisiana Republican Representative Garrett Graves who has been skeptical of the Corp's since Katrina. He has praised the Coalition saying, " The 408 Coalition is attacking real injustice" and the Coalition in response held a fundraiser for him in Washington. The Coalition also has had some influence in the White House with two of their talking points being delivered to a White House infrastructure adviser. This happened before the Trump administration infrastructure plan which includes the idea to simplify taking levees out of the federal system. 

Now, while the 408 Coalition has disbanded as of the end of 2017. This is not the end for its members with many including the Sny becoming clients publicly of the Husch Blackwell lobbying firm. 

ProPublica article here. 

Reuters article on the 2016 article here.