BATTLE CREEK, Neb. -- The Lower Elkhorn Natural Resource District canned any project that required a dam in Battle Creek, and now they are looking at a levee.

After last month's decision, the LENRD is considering funding another study to see how effective a levee would work in Battle Creek.

This would essentially reset the ongoing study of a three-dam project by JEO Consulting. That study was 90% complete, but shifting the focus to a levee would set the study back to 50% completion.

Shifting the study would cost $360,000, money that general manager Mike Sousek said the district doesn't currently have.

"We have roughly $35,000 left in the contract...in the budget," Sousek said. "So the district would need to come up with $325,000 to back this train up and focus on the levee."

As for the construction of the levee, that also comes with a price tag, one that could affect taxpayers.

One of the reasons a three-dam proposal was being considered was because it met a cost-benefit ratio, opening the project to additional funding opportunities.

Sousek said a levee doesn't meet this ratio and finding funds that don't require raising taxes has been difficult.

"I'm having a hard time finding money, grant funds, or any other funds outside of property taxes," Sousek said during the meeting. "Two options we have is raising our property tax to the ceiling. I carried that out for ten years...in year ten we come up with the $43 million to do the levee."

A max tax levy would be 4.5 cents per one hundred dollars of assessed value. Sousek said the second option is to borrow the money from a bank instead.

Because Thursday's meeting was a subcommittee meeting, no action or vote was taken in regard to the Battle Creek watershed.

Sousek also reiterated that funding a study doesn't require the project to be approved and constructed.