Wheatland levee repairs resumed this month, a belated start likely to extend a completion date through next year on the project that would protect the growing city from its neighbor, the Bear River.

Even though the Wheatland project got an early infusion of state levee bond money, repairs have struggled to get under way this year as a building bust left some developers short of money to pick up the balance of the costs.

Just to the east of the city, 20 construction workers are laboring around the clock now to beat the start of flood season and fix another section of the Bear River North levee, a Reclamation District 2103 levee that protects Wheatland and its 3,500 residents from the river just to the south.

A hoped-for July start date was delayed until Sept. 12 after a developer that was to fund $542,000 of the project, Woodside Homes, backed out just before a meeting in July to award the bid, said Tom Engler, project manager for MBK Engineers.

"We didn't get started early enough this year, and there is a bentonite shortage," said Engler, explaining why the completion date was pushed back into next year.

Salt Lake City-based Woodside Homes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month. The company did not return a phone call left earlier this week.

Another developer stepped up with money for the Wheatland levee project.

This year's work will rebuild a 3,700-foot levee section leaving 6,700 feet left to complete the project in August 2009. Only enough bentonite could be found for 3,700 feet, said Engler.

July's delay was the second hitch in this year's levee repairs that will make the city more flood-proof and allow 1,100 homes to be built in a new neighborhood to the south near the river.

The Wheatland City Council kicked in a $2 million transfer from the sewer impact fund in April to fund the levee improvements after developer Lakemont Homes reportedly backed out and Woodside Homes negotiated a deal with the city.

Edward Johanson, president of Roseville-based Lakemont Homes, managing member of the 500-home Jones Ranch LLC development, said his company has already funded more than its share of levee construction.

Johanson said the levee project cost grew beyond that because the old soil was not right for levee work and new soil had to be trucked in. The project now has a price tag of about $20 million, up from $14.7 million.

But Lakemont could not kick in more money for the dirt because even a 500-home subdivision isn't enough to get more money from banks given the decline in home values, Johanson said.

"The good news is, it's going forward and additional participants were able to step up," said Johanson, who noted that the levee repairs were important for existing residents.

Nordic Industries was the low bidder and was awarded a $10.5 million contract for this year's round of work.

Bentonite, a kind of clay, will be poured into a trench dug into the levee that will form a waterproof barrier —called a slurry wall — extending down from 27 feet to 76 feet. The slurry wall will block water and is designed to prevent the kind of levee failure that occurred in Arboga in 1997 when water seeped through the levee there, causing it to fail.

When the Wheatland levee work is completed by August 2009, it is expected to give Wheatland protection against a major Bear River flood with a 1-in-200 chance of occurring in any given year, or a 200-year storm.

Without the repairs, Wheatland could be mapped into a special hazard flood insurance zone because the levee south of the city does not meet Federal Emergency Management Agency standards.

Until the levees are fixed and certified by FEMA, the city has put new building permits on hold for two subdivisions that would extend the city to the south.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter John Dickey at 749-4711 or jdickey@appealdemocrat.com