[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 4/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

April 2, 2007

 

1.  Top Items

 

Fixes go downhill; State taxpayers face bill for feds' work - Sacramento Bee

 

Levees protecting West Sacramento need $8.5 million in repairs - Associated Press

 

 

Fixes go downhill; State taxpayers face bill for feds' work

Sacramento Bee – 4/1/07

By Deb Kollars, staff writer

 

The sides of two new levees protecting West Sacramento -- finished three years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a $32 million project -- have fallen off in certain places and now need $8.5 million worth of repairs.

 

The corps has acknowledged that the two "slips," as they are called, indicate "design deficiencies" that must be investigated, redesigned and repaired.

 

But it may be state taxpayers who pick up the tab because the corps doesn't have money to fix the problem.

 

Late last week, top officials for the California Department of Water Resources decided to dip into the $4.1 billion Proposition 1E levee bond fund that voters approved in November to help cover the costs.

 

State officials don't like being stuck with part or possibly all of the bill. But they say they have no choice, given the need to protect 40,000 people living in West Sacramento from possible flooding.

 

"Of course nobody likes to spend money to fix something that just got built," said Rod Mayer, chief of the department's flood management division. "We like to get it right the first time."

 

The slips -- also called slumps, slope movement, levee distress, surface failure and heaved material in assorted state and federal documents -- are on the levees of the Yolo Bypass, an area north and west of West Sacramento that fills like a lake when the Sacramento River runs high.

 

The first slip showed up after the 2006 New Year's storms on a stretch of levee north of Interstate 80. It involved a grassy area on the land side, 30 feet long at the top and 100 feet at the base, where clay soils became saturated and slipped off in chunks.

 

Four months later, after another round of heavy rains, the second slip occurred on a bypass levee south of I-80, this time on the water side, records show. It was 250 feet long, and again involved waterlogged clay soil that collapsed. The slumping caused the heavy-duty layer of rock on the surface, known as rip-rap, to fall away.

 

The slips came as a disappointment to local, state and federal flood control officials.

 

Just two years earlier, the corps had finished a major flood control project, begun in 1997, that rebuilt, raised and greatly fortified levees surrounding West Sacramento, including those on the bypass.

 

To stand atop one of the bypass levees is a far different experience from walking the narrower and less armored levees of the American and Sacramento rivers. These are some of the widest, stoutest levees in the region, rip-rapped all the way to the top.

 

When work concluded, the corps told West Sacramento the city had 400-year protection from flooding -- a far higher safety margin than the minimal 100-year protection in other areas. (New underseepage studies indicate West Sacramento's protection is much less than previously believed.)

 

Ken Ruzich is the general manager of Reclamation District 900, which maintains the levees surrounding West Sacramento. The slips, he said, are on the surfaces of the slopes, not deep within, and do not pose an imminent danger.

But simply patching the surfaces after high water is not an acceptable solution, Ruzich said.

 

"It's a little frustrating," he said. "The idea is you spend $30 million on levees, and then every time it rains, you have to go back in and do repairs. It's just a matter of finishing up and doing it right."

 

Caroline Quinn, West Sacramento's assistant director of public works and community development, said that over the last year, the city has pressed the corps and sought help from the state to address the problems.

 

"We have two areas of levee that have never performed as they should," Quinn said. "We look at it as a problem with the original design."

 

According to Ruzich and other engineers, the slips likely can be blamed on bands of clay layered into the levees decades ago. In most other parts of the newly constructed levees, the corps removed old clay materials and replaced them with more stable soils.

 

But for some reason, in the areas with the slips, clay soils were left intact. #

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/147485.html

 

 

Levees protecting West Sacramento need $8.5 million in repairs

Associated Press – 4/1/07

 

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Two levees protecting about 40,000 Central California residents from potentially catastrophic flooding need $8.5 million worth of repairs, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps -- which finished the levees three years ago as part of a $32 million project -- said the damage indicates "design deficiencies" that must be investigated, redesigned and repaired. The damage is primarily on the levees of the Yolo Bypass, an area north and west of West Sacramento that fills like a lake when the Sacramento River runs high.

 

Late last week, officials at the California Department of Water Resources said they could use funds from the $4.1 billion Proposition 1E levee bond fund that voters approved in November to help cover the costs.

 

But the state of the levees has left flood control experts disappointed. Three years ago, corps engineers told West Sacramento officials that the city had 400-year protection from flooding -- a far higher safety margin than the minimal 100-year protection in other areas.

"Of course nobody likes to spend money to fix something that just got built," said Rod Mayer, chief of the flood management division of the California Department of Water Resources. "We like to get it right the first time."

Ken Ruzich said the damage is on the surfaces of the slopes -- not deep within the levees. They need to be repaired but do not pose imminent danger.

"The idea is you spend $30 million on levees, and then every time it rains, you have to go back in and do repairs," Ruzich said. "It's just a matter of finishing up and doing it right."

The first sign of distress came immediately after the 2006 New Year's storms on a stretch of levee north of Interstate 80. Clay soils became saturated and slipped off in chunks.

Four months later, after another storm, damage appeared on a bypass levee south of I-80, again involving waterlogged clay soil that collapsed. The slumping caused the heavy-duty layer of rock on the surface, known as riprap, to fall away. #

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/04/02/news/state/4107182206.txt

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