"The Tulsa/West Tulsa levee is going to require a $22 million fix and if that doesn't happen then we could get decertified and that would impact, among other things, everyone's insurance rates," were the strong words spoken by Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith to the Southwest Tulsa Chamber of Commerce last week.

The levee is there and has helped stem potential floodwaters for decades and so we as residents of Tulsa County tend to take it for granted. But there are serious questions - raised by the commissioner herself as well as other officials - about the deficiencies of the levee.

Both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA have standards for levee accreditation and right now, if the levee were deaccredited then everything in the flood plain would be subject to steep hits to the pocketbook in the form of greater mortgage and property insurance rates, for starters. Currently, the levee system protects 5,020 acres of property valued at about $2 billion. Concerned engineers and officials, including Levee Commissioner Todd Kilpatrick, say the money needed for repair is small compared to the consequences of a loss of accreditation - or the possible result of the existing levee's inability to handle a major flood event.

While the County's engineers are working to address what issues they can under current budget constraints, it is still past time for Tulsa County and the entire region to move forward with whatever it takes to get the levee shored up and functioning as it should because too late would be way too late when it comes to property values and possibly lost lives. County officials are talking to state and federal entities to discover exactly what it will take to find the needed funds to bring the levee up to the standards of both FEMA and the Corps.