| October 2005
The Perfect Storm
A Recipe for Disaster
Hurricane Katrina recently swept through the south, causing catastrophic
flooding, destruction, and devastation that will not soon be forgotten.
Our prayers and condolences are sent to those whose homes and belongings
were destroyed, and to the loved ones of those whose lives were
lost. For many, their lives have been changed forever, causing wounds
that will never completely heal.
It is imperative that those of us who live and reside in the Sacramento
Valley learn a lesson from this tragedy to assure that we avoid
a similar fate. The damage experienced by our neighbors to the East
should open our eyes to the power of mother-nature and bring with
it a renewed emphasis on true and long lasting changes to our flood
control policy. In order to ensure public safety and the continued
economic viability of the Sacramento Valley , our flood control
system must be returned to its design capacity.
New Orleans ’ flood control structures reportedly provided
the city with a 250 year level of flood protection. Most urban and
rural areas in the Sacramento Valley have a level of protection
of 100 years or less. In New Orleans , it was a Level 5 hurricane
that was able to overcome the flood control system. In California
, our perfect storm is likely to be what is often referred to as
the “Pineapple Express,” a large, tropical storm that
brings with it vast amounts of warm rain, melting the snow pack,
filling our reservoirs, and testing the capacity of our flood control
system.
Unfortunately, the system of dams, weirs, bypasses and levees that
makes up our flood control system, that has served us well for decades,
has been compromised due to the lack of emphasis and funding for
the maintenance of the system, reducing its effectiveness and placing
all who live and work in the Sacramento Valley in harm’s way.
The Tisdale and Fremont Weirs, two vital relief valves that direct
excess water from the Sacramento River channel into the bypasses
during periods of high flow, have been greatly compromised due to
the lack of funding for routine cleaning. The bypasses, the floodways
where flood easements have been obtained to move the overflow floodwaters,
have been allowed to be filled with sediment and overgrown with
vegetation, restricting their ability to function as designed. Despite
desperate pleas from levee and reclamation districts, as well as
flood control advocates like FWA, this situation continues to worsen.
Further, the carrying capacity of the river channel itself has been
greatly reduced due to the promotion of riparian habitat and large
woody debris which creates sandbars and islands within the floodway.
With more water remaining within the levee system, and a reduction
in the free flowing characteristics of that system, the integrity
of the levees has suffered as a result. Currently, an Army Corps
of Engineers report has disclosed 184 erosion sites, 37 deemed critical
or potentially critical, concluding that “It is very likely
that severe damage and possibly a failure will occur at one or more
of the potentially critical and critical erosion sites when the
next high flow period occurs.”
How has something as important of flood control for public safety
been overlooked you might ask? It is clear that environmental concerns
have been placed above public safety. While flood control has received
little funding, Propositions 40 and 50, as well as the CALFED program,
have funneled billions of dollars into land acquisitions and ecosystem
restoration, filling the flood control system with riparian habitat.
This coupled with the promotion of a meandering river, the very
catalyst for the degradation of the system, has resulted in a very
dangerous situation from a flood control perspective. Basically,
we have been mortgaging the state’s finances to poison our
flood control system, resulting in greater costs to protect our
citizenry, and ultimately placing us directly in harm’s way.
To exacerbate this dilemma, the cost of flood control work has
reportedly risen from a cost of $200-300 per linear foot to fix
an eroding levee site, to $5000 or more per linear foot. This is
a direct result of increased environmental and mitigation costs.
These exorbitant costs make routine maintenance cost prohibitive.
When the funds are appropriated to do the necessary work, the studies,
reviews and mitigation delay the time to complete the work by several
years. Further, the Endangered Species Act has also continually
hampered maintenance efforts to remove sediment and vegetative growth
from the weirs and bypasses. It is clear that the burden of an overly
broad implementation of the ESA and regulatory delays is causing
an unnecessary increase in the cost of flood protection, and more
importantly, an unacceptable increase in the risk of flooding.
It has been reported that a similar set of circumstances prohibited
much needed upgrades to the levees along the Mississippi River in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas; improvements that may have
been able to prevent some of the damage that occurred in the South.
However, such work was put off due to lawsuits by environmental
groups who were more concerned with wildlife habitat than public
safety. Let the residents of the Sacramento Valley not be another
victim of radical environmentalism run amok.
In California, the recent events of Hurricane Katrina, along with
last year’s flooding of an island in the Delta (causing almost
$100,000,000 in damage), and the Paterno case that found liability
against the state for flood damages for the levee failure in 1986,
has caused a renewed emphasis on flood control. [Disturbingly, it
was the $600 million judgment that was the catalyst for reform,
not the death and destruction that occurred almost 20 years prior].
This renewed emphasis was encapsulated in AB 1665, a proposal by
Assemblyman John Laird of Santa Cruz , to address changes in flood
control policy in the Central Valley . Many of the proposals set
forth in the legislation follow the recommendations in the DWR report
entitled the “Flood Crisis”, which promotes flood insurance
and notification of risk, flood mapping to stop development in the
flood plain, and legislative amendments to avoid state liability
for flood damages under the legal theory of inverse condemnation.
While some of these proposals may have merit, they fail to address
the real problem – the health of our flood control system.
These proposals all deal with the aftermath of the devastation caused
by the seemingly impending flooding and how to soften the blow for
the state; yet fails to further the much needed work to the flood
control system that protects us from flooding. Our flood control
system was constructed decades ago, and if maintained properly,
is capable of providing a very high degree of protection for the
residents of the North State . Unfortunately, the state has now
let the health of that system falter by failing to maintain it to
design capacity. Instead of treating this predicament like an illness,
and prescribing an approach to cure the problem, the State has instead
elected to focus on the funeral plans, focusing on who will pay
for the services. This type of thinking must come to a stop. It
is a recipe for disaster, and if allowed to continue, will create
the perfect storm for the Sacramento Valley .
In order to remedy the situation, we must place a premium on the
security of the homes, businesses, farms, and lives of those who
reside and work in the Sacramento Valley . This has to be the number
one priority, ahead of ecosystem restoration and other conflicting
agendas. Next, we must recommit to flood control, making available
the funding from the state and federal governments necessary to
clean out the weirs and bypasses and to fix the erosion sites on
the levees. In order to fund this work, we need to reduce the regulatory
encumbrances that make desperately needed repairs time consuming
and cost prohibitive. We need a relaxing of the mandates of the
ESA where public safety is at risk. We need to advocate for more
reservoirs to address the three biggest problems facing California
’s future: flood control, electricity generation, and water
supply. Again, we must make public safety a priority.
If we continue to fail to address these much needed changes in
flood control policy, I fear those of us living in the Sacramento
Valley will be the recipients of the prayers and condolences of
others.
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