[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 4/16/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

April 17, 2007

 

1.  Top Items

 

Sacramento seeks tax increase to pay for more flood protection - Associated Press

 

Editorial: Find those ballots; Floodplain landowners: Vote for safety - Sacramento Bee

 

 

Sacramento seeks tax increase to pay for more flood protection

Associated Press – 4/14/07

By Samantha Young, staff writer

 

SACRAMENTO- When Bernadette Chiang bought her ranch-style home in one of Sacramento's more popular neighborhoods, she loved the idea of being close to the Sacramento River.

 

The nearby levee, covered with grass and topped with a trail, offered a scenic escape just a short walk from her home. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, however, the city and its residents began looking at their levees in a different light—as a fine, fragile line between normal life and catastrophe.

 

This month, Chiang and other property owners in California's capital are taking part in an unusual mail-in vote to decide whether to tax themselves for greater flood protection. While the vote is weighted so those most at risk would pay more, many residents are wondering why the tax is needed at all—especially after voters statewide approved billions of dollars for flood control last November.

 

In the neighborhood Chiang calls home, property owners are being asked to pay the highest average fee—$108 a year. The Pocket is aptly named, sitting in an unnatural bend and surrounded on three sides by California's largest river. Many of the homes that back up to the levee actually sit below water level.

 

A break could flood the neighborhood under more than 10 feet of water. That would inundate Chiang's home and destroy the design business she runs out of her garage, where shelves are bulging with catalogs, fabric samples and plans.

 

"Imagine if this place got flooded. I would have nothing left," she said.

 

Sacramento's risk of flooding is among the greatest of any major city in the country. It sits at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers, and below Folsom Lake, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said does not have enough storage to contain a major flood.

 

The assessment is designed to double the region's flood protection to a 200-year level, or a 13 percent chance of catastrophic flooding over 30 years, the average lifetime mortgage of home.

 

If it passes, the tax would raise $274 million over 30 years to pay for the local share of strengthening about 100 miles of levees and raising Folsom Dam, about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento along the American River.

 

A major flood in Sacramento would reach an estimated 63,800 homes, schools, hospitals and businesses across 102 square miles and could cause more than $11 billion in damage, according to a study by the California Department of Water Resources.

 

Sacramento has seen devastating floods before. Historians described the flood plain on which it sits as an inland sea, with river water pouring into the low-lying valley every winter and spring.

 

In 1862, flooding was so bad that lawmakers contemplated moving the state capital to San Francisco. A break in the earthen levee along the American River and heavy rains had delayed construction of the statehouse building, but lawmakers decided instead to raise it six feet.

 

Before the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes brought renewed attention to the city's flood risks, local officials allowed home builders to push into a broad stretch of former agricultural land north of downtown.

 

The sprawling Natomas neighborhood of indistinguishable homes and suburban strip malls, home to the Sacramento Kings' Arco Arena, sits below a sharp bend in the Sacramento River. The flood danger is among the worst in the nation, with government scientists predicting that flood waters could reach as deep as 26 feet.

 

Last summer, the U.S. Corps of Engineers withdrew its certification for the levees that border the neighborhood. As a result, Natomas homeowners will be required to buy flood insurance beginning this summer.

 

One of them, Dora Noegel, supports the flood assessment, although she already carries flood insurance.

 

"I wasn't that concerned about it. Most of Sacramento is in a flood plain," she said. "I'd rather have floods than a tornado."

 

The assessment would be calculated on a sliding scale, with property owners paying anywhere from a few dollars a year to several thousands dollars for regional flood-control projects.

 

Lot size, location, a building's value and how much it would benefit from flood projects are among the factors determining the amount of the tax. Business owners and farmers would be assessed along with home owners.

 

The higher the possible assessment, the more a property owner's vote will count in the mail-in election that ends Thursday. The result is to be announced April 26.

 

"The idea is to give people a voice proportionally to the stake they have in terms of the taxes they must pay," said Stein Buer, executive director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, an appointed board of area elected officials.

 

Not everyone is for the higher taxes.

 

At Garcia Bend Park in the Pocket neighborhood, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other politicians have held news conferences to discuss the Central Valley's fragile levees, stay-at-home mother Zhanny Huey doesn't think taxpayers should shell out more cash for flood improvements.

 

Her ballot showed up in the mailbox just four months after California voters approved a $4.1 billion flood bond to strengthen the weakest sections of the state's levees.

 

"It's pretty hard. We barely make our payment for our house," said Huey, whose husband is the sole bread winner for the family of five.

 

Some property owners also have complained about mixed messages.

 

At the same time ballots were mailed out detailing the region's flood risk, insurance companies sent letters to residents in the Pocket informing them they no longer needed flood insurance. The notices followed a February declaration by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that emergency repairs to the neighborhood's levees meant the community had achieved 100-year flood protection.

 

That is part of the reason Brian Johnston is skeptical about the Sacramento area's flood risk. Nevertheless, he said he favors the flood assessment. The owner of a two-story home that meets the top of the Pocket neighborhood levee, Johnston said he hopes the tax dollars will be well spent.

 

"We're doing this because of Katrina," Johnston said. "I don't mind being taxed for that, as long as its used properly." #

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5668827?nclick_check=1

 

 

Editorial: Find those ballots; Floodplain landowners: Vote for safety

Sacramento Bee – 4/14/07

 

Yes, an election is under way in Sacramento County -- not for everyone, but for tens of thousands of property owners in the floodplain who have a historic choice to make.

 

The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency is winding down its by-mail election to see if property owners agree to a modest property assessment increase that would improve flood protection along the Sacramento and American Rivers. It's a great deal (every buck that the landowner invests will get matched nine times over by the state and federal governments). But for the voters to speak their mind in the way it counts, they need to take that SAFCA envelope that has been sitting in the bill pile for weeks and pop that ballot into the mail. If you're among those procrastinators, we'll bite our tongue about the procrastination habit, but we're not above begging you to vote. We'd like the community to stay above water when the big flood arrives.

 

And that ballot in that bill pile: It's the piece of the puzzle that we desperately need.

 

When it comes to flood funding, this community's timing could not be better. A lot of those state and federal matching funds for SAFCA's use are available now. That's because voters statewide approved more than $4 billion in flood protection funding in November. A local community that has its contribution lined up will stand a better chance of getting the matching funds from the state and the feds than a community simply with its hand out.

 

From an engineering perspective, Sacramento has an array of flood protection projects in mind. The levees along the Sacramento River that protect Natomas need work to prevent underseepage, for example. And on the American River, Folsom Dam needs a new spillway so that it can release more water before the big flood surge arrives. It has the state and federal support to get the work done as quickly as possible. All that is needed is that local share of the money.

 

That is why the ballot hanging around on your desk at home could change history. The goal isn't the bare minimum, the so-called "100-year" protection to stave off that storm that has a theoretical one-in 100 chance of happening in any given winter. The goal is to at least double that protection, for everyone who votes.

 

The deadline to cast a ballot is Thursday. The average assessment increase is less than $40 a year. It's more than worth it to cast that Yes vote for safety. #

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/154703.html

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