Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 25, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
MEMBERSHIP IN LEVEE AGENCY:
Sutter joins levee agency; Supervisors wonder how to pay county’s share - Marysville Appeal Democrat
LEVEE ISSUES:
Levees can't withstand big flood; Officials say Lathrop, Manteca barriers fail to meet safety standards - Tri Valley Herald
UCD Studies Plants' Role in Flood Protection - Channel 10 News (
Getting the creek out of harm's way; Flood board seeks earlier work on Napa Creek, but complications remain - Napa Valley Register
DELTA POLICY:
Column: Delta water dilemma: Restoration and plumbing -
DELTA LEVEE SUPPORT:
Pombo out to shore up levee support - Stockton Record
STATEWIDE WATER PLANNING:
Governor calls for action to prevent water crisis - California Farm Bureau
FOLSOM
Boats must go as Folsom Lake is lowered - Sacramento Bee
MEMBERSHIP IN LEVEE AGENCY:
Sutter joins levee agency; Supervisors wonder how to pay county’s share
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 7/25/07
Robert LaHue, staff writer
In a unanimous vote, supervisors approved joining the Sutter-Butte Flood Control Agency, which is intended to spearhead levee improvements on the west side of the
The board was to choose two members and an alternate to represent the county on SBFCA. Supervisor Jim Whiteaker recommended permanently designating the board chair and vice-chair as the voting members, with the alternate being the incoming vice-chair based on a traditional rotation.
Under that arrangement, Supervisors Dan Silva and Larry Montna are the SBFCA representatives. Administrator Larry Combs said he thought that the rotation had Whiteaker as the incoming vice-chair.
Jeff Twitchell, engineer for Levee District 1, estimated getting the regional agency off the ground would take around $5 million. He asked where the money would come from.
Combs said the county and
Twitchell implored the board to get more aggressive in figuring out local levee solutions.
“We’re falling behind some of the other communities,” he said.
County officials said developing local levee solutions is the idea behind forming SBFCA, but disagreed the county was falling behind.
John P. Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army-Civil Works, said in May that Yuba and Sutter counties were on the forefront of levee control efforts, Silva noted.
Along with Sutter and
Twitchell, standing with LD 1 Manager Bill Hampton, said their district is on board to help any way they can.
“The message I want to leave is ... we need to be responsive to developing plans within the county,” he said. #
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/levee_51634___article.html/county_agency.html
LEVEE ISSUES:
Levees can't withstand big flood; Officials say Lathrop,
By Paul Burgarino, staff writer
LATHROP — A state water board has declared that levees protecting Lathrop and a slice of
The state Department of Water Resources was asked recently to support a flood plain mapping effort by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for land protected by Reclamation District 17 levees. If it was agreed upon by local and state agencies that the levees were adequate, then FEMA would consider the levees safe for two years.
However, in a June 19 letter sent to the mayors of Lathrop and
"Accordingly, the Department of Water Resources cannot support either the provisionally accredited levee or a recertification of the RD 17 levees at this time," Harder wrote.
An extension was offered earlier this year by FEMA, which is updating flood maps across the nation. Many county levees that FEMA doesn't expect to meet 100-year flood protection requirements could apply for the two-year "partial accreditation" — a grace period to prove their worth.
Officials from Reclamation District 17 — the local agency that maintains and owns easements for the levees — and
The state's decision throws a twist into a plan federal officials hoped would keep thousands of
Levee officials at the district and city level challenge assertions made by the state. Since the levees in RD 17 were originally certified in 1990, two events have impacted Lathrop's levees. Conditions in 1997 from the El Nino winter caused the
"In the view of reclamation district, the levees are still in compliance, in fact because of repairs they are better than 1990," said Dante Nomellini, an attorney representing RD 17, of the $8 to $10 million needed to repair the levees.
Hurricane Katrina and its effect on levees in the
FEMA is trying to digitize their flood map, while looking for "fatal flaws" in the levee system through this update,
Nomellini said.
"The question here, in the view of the reclamation district is the change in the state's attitude," he said, referring to steps by the state to create a more comprehensive flood plan.
"There's a big step that's being leaped over, for state officials to have a change in attitude that minor seepage should be treated as a fatal flaw and put everyone in a disqualified status," Nomellini said.
Reclamation District 17 is the first of many districts expected to ask the state for its support in the upcoming weeks.
Manteca City Engineer Jim Stone said there is no such thing as perfect protection from flood threats or other natural events.
"The levees protecting
Still, Harder was adamant that the levees needed "major structural improvement."
Though most of the land covered by levees is farmland, new regulations could threaten development. Richland Planned Communities has expressed concerns about plans for its 6,800
"It could have a significant affect on timing of our project," said Clifton Taylor, the project manager for
Lathrop development requires installing toe drains, which carry seepage away from the dam, "to add to the protection resulting from seepage," Nomellini said, adding insurance rates could go up from $300 to nearly $2,000 if the area is marked as flood-prone.
It's not clear whether the Department of Water Resource refusal will affect the district's extension request, said officials with FEMA. Applications for extensions aren't due until the end of August.
Nomellini and Stone said the best hope now is to get federal officials to approve the levees before October. #
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/ci_6458384
UCD Studies Plants' Role in Flood Protection
Channel 10 News (
By Alicia Malaby, Anchor-Reporter
Researchers at UC Davis are studying the role of vegetation in protecting soil from erosion along
Their findings show that plants such as sand bar willow actually help keep the soil intact even during high water flows that were mimicked in a large hydraulic flume.
"The energy it takes to pull a root apart is much greater than the energy to separate a couple of soil grains or sand grains," said Stefan Lorenzato of the California Department of Water Resources. Lorenzato added that he believes plants play a significant role in increasing the stability of floodways and levees.
The findings come at a crucial time as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is updating a policy that requires nearly all vegetation to be removed from levees. Meegan Nagy, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told News10 that the findings of the UC Davis study will be considered when the corps finalizes any policy changes in December.
The study is also examining how fish such as the Chinook salmon utilize vegetation to seek out areas where the water flow is lower, thus allowing the fish to conserve energy that can be used later for growth and reproduction.
The study will be complete in one year, but researchers are releasing results as they go along because of the impending federal policy changes governing levee vegetation.
http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=30700
Getting the creek out of harm's way; Flood board seeks earlier work on Napa Creek, but complications remain
By Kevin Courtney, staff writer
While conceding it might be impractical, the local flood board voted Tuesday to make flood defenses on Napa Creek as high a priority as those on the
The board will ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin flood work on Napa Creek at the same time as it starts major construction in the river’s Oxbow.
In a perfect world, this would happen in 2008, but Heather Stanton, the district’s manager, said that is unlikely. Corps plans for two new railroad bridges — one over the Napa River, one over the bypass channel to be built near the Oxbow — are far along, while planning for Napa Creek has just begun, she said.
An even more fundamental problem is that federal funds are lagging far behind the corps’ desire to speed up the pace of construction, officials said.
The flood board, representing members of
After suffering eight floods in 12 years, the more than 500 homes and businesses along the creek need protection now, Linda Kerr of In Harm’s Way told board members.
Tuesday’s board vote left creek residents frustrated. “It all remains to be seen,” Kerr said. “At this point it’s all words, no action.”
In Harm’s Way has been working for a year and a half to speed construction of creek defenses, but so far has little to show for it, she said afterward.
When voters approved flood funding by passing Measure A in 1998, the project master plan called for the Corps of Engineers to complete river defenses before tackling Napa Creek. The increasing frequency at which the creek has overflowed its banks has called that plan into question.
District staff said it was not realistic to expect the Corps of Engineers to proceed with construction contracts in 2008 for both the railroad bridges and creek’s culverts and flood terraces.
The $37 million bridge project is on track to go to bid in 2008, but Napa Creek, estimated to cost $15 million or more, will not be ready to be constructed until 2009 at the earliest,
If the bridge contract were held up, that would likely mean no construction in 2008, which could have dire consequences on
If the corps rejects the possibility doing both the railroad bridges and the lower portion of Napa Creek in 2008, the flood board has an alternative strategy to propose to the corps: Napa Creek should become the top priority after the bridges. This would potentially mean delaying the flood bypass channel by several years, the board voted.
Both district staff and the Corps of Engineers will be asked to analyze the implications of delaying the bypass channel. Under the corps’ current schedule, the bypass would start in 2010, with Napa Creek following in 2013.
The bypass is one of the key components of the entire flood project,
Staff suggested scenarios for building the lower portion of Napa Creek defenses — twin culverts between
The city could also be a funding source, district staff said. The district is scheduled to pay $2 million to the city for
In Harm’s Way will be going to the City Council to ask that these flood revenues be committed to Napa Creek, Kerr said.
The city has been planning to use the $3.66 million to partially fund a parking garage that would serve new commercial development in the area of Main and
The flood board agreed to requests from In Harm’s Way to expedite preliminary work for Napa Creek so construction can start as soon as federal or special funding is found. #
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/07/25/news/local/doc46a6cfa5186aa583222739.txt
DELTA POLICY:
Column: Delta water dilemma: Restoration and plumbing
By Peter Schrag, Bee columnist
Last week, while Senate Republicans thumbed their noses at their governor and vetoed his budget, he was showing-and-telling new projects for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the 738,000-acre region of sloughs, wetlands and farms that many Californians don't know exists.
But of the two, the latter, with its thorny tangle of related water issues is easily the more crucial to the state's future.
Delta restoration work that the governor came to
Given the fragile state of the region, the governor's attention is both welcome and long overdue. It's also encouraging that the administration, in the words of Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, is now "engaged" in her effort to link flood risks to land-use planning in floodplains and to devolve some responsibility for flood damage to the local entities that authorize development there.
Yet even recognizing, as Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow does, that the listed projects -- restoring habitat, working on emergency plans in case of earthquake or floods, checking land subsidence -- are just a beginning, the governor's program does nothing to change the basic assumptions on which the state's water policies and planning have long been based.
The key assumption is that there's a direct relationship between growth of the population, a growing economy and increasing demand for water. But as Peter Gleick of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute points out, between 1975 and 2001, as
Forty years ago, according to Gleick and his colleagues,
Is that "conveyance" a revival of the
At the same time, even skeptics among the enviros now look on the canal idea a little more favorably than they once did. Moving more water around the Delta would reduce the use of the Delta pumps near
And as pointed out in an influential report from the Public Policy Institute of California, a canal might also, if managed properly, increase sea water concentrations in parts of the Delta and thereby reduce the spread of the invasive species that depend on fresh water.
The wild card is global warming — the rising sea level, the diminishing Sierra snowpack and drought. Director Snow believes that the shrinking snow level, meaning diminishing water storage in the mountains in the coming years, will itself generate the need for more flood control and downstream storage. Some could be pumped into underground aquifers, he allows, but often not at a rate that would capture sufficient runoff. Ergo, the need for more dams.
In fact, nobody really knows. The research, Gleick said, hasn't been done. If the state's existing dams were programmed for new climatic conditions by capturing more runoff during the wet season and saving less for the snowmelt that won't come, the state might well manage without new surface storage.
And what about the assumptions about demand? Gleick is confident that with proper conservation techniques -- more drip rather than flood irrigation, changes to higher-value crops that require less water, greater use of recycled water for gardens, parks and golf courses and a variety of conservation measures in household use -- consumption could be reduced below what the Department of Water Resources projects. Exports from the Delta could thus be reduced.
Equally crucial is pricing. Who pays what share of the cost of capturing and delivering the water?
"Urbanites have long subsidized farmers," said Tom Graff, the regional director of Environmental Defense, largely because of old federal contracts and outdated water rights that use "the taxpayers' rather than the ratepayers' money.
"There just isn't enough water to continue to pass it around willy-nilly on the cheap, extract huge quantities of it both upstream and from the Delta, and expect a healthy, much less 'restored' ecosystem in the Delta."
There's a governor's commission that's supposed to report on the broader Delta issues by the end of the year. Much of
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/289934.html
DELTA LEVEE SUPPORT:
Pombo out to shore up levee support
By Anna Kaplan, staff writer
Former Rep. Richard Pombo is canvassing
"What we're trying to do is develop support for the levee effort. None of us can do it ourselves, so we're trying to channel our focus into one voice," Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford said about his support for the group.
Lee said he and other officials approached Pombo and his lobbying firm, Oregon-based Pac/West Communications, to ask for help in amassing the county's cities into one unified force.
"You have to have a political mechanism to dial in, and that's what this is. Some of our cities are simply not set up for that," Lee said.
Several of the cities' officials have voiced concerns about the future of the Delta's levees in light of federal agencies threatening to decertify them, which has the potential to skyrocket building, insurance and other costs.
"No city or county by themselves are in a financial position to solve the problem," Pombo said. "They're much more effective and stronger as a group than as individual entities."
Cities other than
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070725/A_NEWS/707250314
STATEWIDE WATER PLANNING:
Governor calls for action to prevent water crisis
By Ching Lee, Assistant Editor
While
The governor visited the San Luis Reservoir in
That plan would provide $4.5 billion to build two reservoirs and boost surface and groundwater storage; $1 billion to restore the delta; and $450 million for restoration and conservation efforts.
"I want to make sure that when people in
Schwarzenegger has asked the state Department of Water Resources to take immediate steps to improve the deteriorating conditions of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, through which water travels to provide for the needs of 25 million Californians and irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of
"But it also is one of the most vulnerable areas in
In commenting on the governor's water plan, California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar said he was encouraged by the focus on new water storage.
"Adding to our state's water supply will benefit all Californians," Mosebar said. "As the governor rightly points out, the time for action has come. We will continue to work with his administration to create an action plan that enhances water supplies, maintains delta water quality, benefits the environment and improves water security for family farmers, ranchers and all Californians."
The governor's interim plan to protect the delta calls for increased efforts to control the spread of invasive species such as the quagga mussel, which competes with native species like the endangered Delta smelt; restore the delta's natural habitat; improve response to natural disasters; and install screens on unscreened diversions in the delta to prevent the potential for smelt to be sucked into pumps.
The threat of regulatory action to protect the smelt forced the state to take voluntary action to stop pumping water from the delta for nine days in June. The shutdown, coupled with this year's dry weather, has drained much of the San Luis Reservoir, which stores water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta bound for Southern California residents and Central Valley farmers that would otherwise run into the Pacific Ocean.
Schwarzenegger noted that the reservoir is now holding just 25 percent of its capacity of more than 2 million acre-foot.
"Already we are hearing that farmers are taking fields out of production because they don't have enough water," he said.
The governor also noted that water districts around the state are now asking residents to cut their water usage, while counties such as
"If we have another dry season like this, I would say that it will be catastrophic; it will be a disaster," he said.
Joining Schwarzenegger during his stop at the San Luis Reservoir was
"Farmers today use less water than they used in the 1960s while producing higher yields of high value crops with tremendous nutritional value. The water saved by agriculture has helped fuel
Schwarzenegger said his $5.9 billion comprehensive water plan, which Democratic legislators rejected in April, would protect the environment, support the state's economy, preserve safe, reliable drinking water and help communities conserve water supplies. He said he is hoping the Legislature will pass his plan by the end of the year.
The governor's immediate restoration plans for the delta would cost $120 million. That money would come out of the $1 billion proposed in the larger comprehensive plan. But the near-term actions proposed in the plan are not meant to replace recommendations from ongoing delta planning efforts, said Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
Rather, they are "actions that we can take with existing resources, where we're not dependent on actions taken by the Legislature in this session," Snow said, and they must be "tied to a long-term fix," otherwise those actions are "meaningless; they're band-aid approaches."
"We do not want people to go home thinking that they have fixed the problem by passing a handful of bills that just address a few symptoms and not the fundamental problem," he added.
Bob Balgenorth, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council in
"His water project will generate enough jobs to employ all those 70,000 people that are unemployed, plus bring in new men and women, young men and women, to become apprentices and begin a career in construction, a good-paying with health, pension and good wages," he said. #
http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=868&ck=DD45045F8C68DB9F54E70C67048D32E8
FOLSOM
Boats must go as Folsom
By Cathy Locke, staff writer
FOLSOM -- The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that boats will have to be removed from Brown's Ravine Marina at Folsom Lake by Aug. 1.
Releases to the
The lake is expected to drop by a half-foot per day throughout the summer, according to the news release.
The Hobie Cove ramp will remain open for the rest of the summer for boaters wishing to use the lake during the day. The fuel dock also is expected to operate until mid-August.
For more information, call Paul Fujitani at (916) 979-2197, or visit the bureau's Mid-Pacific Region Web site at www.usbr.gov/mp/.
For information on ramp availability, see the Folsom Lake Marina Web site at www.folsomlakemarina.com/Ramps.html.
DWR's California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader's services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost1.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news. DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of
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