MORE LEVEES DON'T MAKE GOOD SENSE FOR FUTURE FLOODING

A few years ago there was a familiar television commercial for a butter substitute whose punch line was: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." In the highly technical language of a report based on an 18-month-long study of how flood-control projects work along the Mississippi River drainage basin, the Army Corps of Engineers came to essentially the same conclusion.

Here are the highlights of that report:

-- Building enough levees to prevent widespread damage from another flood like the one in 1993 would could billions of dollars.

-- Congress needs to look at buyouts and improved flood insurance programs rather than trying to prevent more flooding.

-- If levees were high enough to protect farmland, the river level at St. Louis would have been six feet higher, enough to flood much of the city.

What it boils down to is the simple fact that the billions of dollars that already have been spent on levees and other structures to prevent flooding has contributed to the seriousness of the problem in circumstances like 1993 and this year. To spend billions more and make even more problems makes no sense at all.

This fact is important, because government policy on what to do about flood-prone areas is in the balance. Buyouts become a bargain when compared to the cost of foolproof flood control.

There is another important component in the Corp of Engineers' report. "Restoration of a series of natural floodplain patches connected by more restrictive river corridors would be practical and beneficial."

Sounds like Mother Nature had the right idea all along. In truth, it isn't nice to fool her.