BY MIKE FITZGERALD

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, on Tuesday called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release publicly their data on metro-east levees, as well as to brief local leaders and residents.

"Having access to information and your commitment to work with the local communities in addressing their concerns should be the bedrock of updating flood maps in any area," Durbin said in a statement released Tuesday.

Durbin's call for the release of information by the two federal agencies follows by one day his announcement that he convinced FEMA to delay until January 2011 new flood-insurance rate maps for Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties.

And Durbin's request follows by two days a News-Democrat story raising questions about FEMA's refusal to show what evidence, if any, the agency has indicating the deficiencies of flood-protection levees in Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties.

"This additional time brings with it an opportunity for all of those affected by the updating of flood maps a chance to better understand the status of the levees in question and the flood-mapping process," Durbin said in the press release.

Cat Langel, a spokeswoman for the FEMA regional office in Chicago, declined to comment for this story.

"Questions about certification (of levees) need to be directed to the Army Corps of Engineers," Langel said.

A spokesman for the corps office in St. Louis did not return calls seeking comment.

Over the past two years, FEMA officials have refused to disclose what data they possess indicating the structural deficiencies of flood-protection levees in Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties, or what reasons led the Corps to refuse to recertify the levees the corps had built.

Nonetheless, FEMA has announced plans to publish new flood-insurance rate maps for the three counties based on the assumption the levees are functionally useless. As a result of the new maps, the cost of flood insurance premiums was expected to soar for 150,000 owners of property west of Illinois 157 in the three counties.

Late last year, the Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention Council, in Collinsville, filed extensive requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain FEMA data on the flood levees. So far FEMA has not complied with the FOIA requests.

Les Sterman, the council's chief engineer, welcomed Durbin's call on FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to release to the public their data and analysis of metro-east levees.

"Anything the senator can do to expedite that response will be helpful," Sterman said. "I'm curious to see what they have because it might be helpful in how they made the decision (on the flood maps) and possibly the things we need to address in the fixes."