The Perfect Storm - A Recipe for Disaster

By Jeffrey P. Sutton, October 2005

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 levees 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 harms way.

The Tisdale and Fremont Weirs, two vial 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 that 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. A recent 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 as flood control for public safety been overlooked? The answer - environmental concerns have been placed above public safety. While flood control has received little funding, Propositions 40 and 50, as well as the CALFED programs, have funneled billions of dollars into land acquisitions and ecosystem restoration, filling the flood control system with riparian vegetation. 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 levee repair work has reportedly risen from a cost of $200-$200 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 funds are appropriated for flood control, it is spent on studies and mitigation which delays the time to complete the work by several years. Further, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) 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 application of the ESA and regulatory delays is causing an unnecessary increase in the cost of flood protection, and more importantly, an unacceptable increase in flood risks.

It has been reported that a similar set of circumstances prohibited much needed upgrades to the levees in the South; improvements that may have been able to prevent some of the damage that occurred. 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 "Responding to California's 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 t 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 main challenges facing California's 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. 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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