Civic leaders are enlisting more muscle in the fight to hold back new federal flood standards until Metro East levees can meet them.

The St. Louis Metro East Levee Issues Alliance was introduced Wednesday as a coalition of civic organizations, businesses, community leaders and concerned citizens, to be administered by Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois.

At immediate issue is getting Senate approval of a bill that already passed the House. It would trigger a five-year delay in revisions to flood plain maps that would designate much of the American Bottom as high-risk.

Such a designation would force more people to buy flood insurance, increase insurance rates and restrict development in an area of Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties that is home to 150,000 people, thousands of businesses and key components of the region's heavy industry.

Mark Tade, president of Leadership Council, a development group, issued a statement that said, in part, "We hope to step up the efforts and increase the pressure on our lawmakers and the Administration to be our partners in this process and not an impediment to achieving our common goal — protecting the lives, property and economic assets in the American Bottom."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced in 2007 that it has doubts about the existing levees' ability to withstand a 100-year flood, one with a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.

Local leaders have questioned the accuracy of that assessment but also have established a quarter-cent sales tax and established the Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District to move ahead with more than $150 million in levee reinforcement work.