Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 30, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
Levee squabbles hit Live Oak general plan - Marysville Appeal Democrat
NAPA CREEK FLOOD CONTROL
Napa Creek-area residents remain 'In Harm's Way' -
NEW
Construction starts on $181 million state building downtown -
Levee squabbles hit Live Oak general plan
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 11/30/07
By Robert LaHue, staff writer
Some Live Oak-area development stakeholders want to hold off on committing to fund the city’s general plan update until studies on the structural integrity of nearby levees are completed.
But other developers claim that’s not necessary, and city staff members are expressing their doubts about the benefit of such a move as well.
The suggestion for the delay due to levee concerns came Wednesday during a meeting about the levees, the latest in a series of about the general plan update. Development interests in areas near the city limits are funding the update in exchange for future annexation into the city.
Attorney Seth Merewitz, representing development interests in the southwest annexation area, said having the studies, which will show results of core samplings done on area levees by the state Department of Water Resources, will allow the developers’ engineers to get a better idea of the financial impact of the levees.
Kevin Walker, project manager for the northwest and southwest regions, said that would be another 60 to 90 days away. In October, the City Council set a Dec. 17 deadline for developers to say whether they would continue funding the general plan update or pull out of the project.
“We would like to know if what we’re funding is workable,”
But Denis Cook, representing northeast area development, said the plan shouldn’t be delayed because of levee issues.
City Manager Tom Lando also wondered why that would be necessary. The levee issues don’t affect the update itself in the short term but will have an impact on construction costs in the area, he said, because residents will likely need to either fund a share of levee improvement costs or begin to pay mandatory flood insurance.
The City Council did not announce if it would change the Dec. 17 deadline. #
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/city_57162___article.html/plan_area.html
NAPA CREEK FLOOD CONTROL
Napa Creek-area residents remain 'In Harm's Way'
By Kevin Courtney, staff writer
With the rainy season about to begin, residents along Napa Creek have vivid memories of the last time it rained hard.
“You see it coming out of the storm drain, then over the bank. There’s nothing gentle about it. It’s a flash flood ... it’s one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen,” said Anita Howe, a resident of
Howe is remembering the night of Dec. 31, 2005, when Napa Creek overflowed with unprecedented fury. Some 500 residential and business properties were fully or partially inundated.
Howe spent the night marooned in her elevated house, surrounded by flood waters. Because she never lost power, the Christmas lights on her porch radiated a false holiday cheer throughout the ordeal.
Since then, her neighbors have come together as In Harm’s Way to pressure the Napa City Council, Napa County Flood Control District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make creek protection a top priority.
They have been partially successful. The planned construction of culverts and flood terraces has been moved up three years and is now scheduled to start in 2010, the same time as the river’s Oxbow bypass channel.
For the leaders of In Harm’s Way, this limited victory leaves a bitter taste. With the creek overflowing every year or two, why isn’t protecting their neighborhood the flood project’s top priority, they ask.
The flood board continues to push
“Their interest lies elsewhere, not with the Napa Creek community,” Linda Kerr, the leader of In Harm’s Way, said of the flood board, composed of elected leaders from
“The elected representatives ... have not stood up for us,” said Mark Fogarty, a resident of Seminary Street whose first floor basement was flooded two years ago. “We’ve been getting a lot of flim-flam.”
Napa Mayor Jill Techel, who chairs the flood board, argues that the concerns of Napa Creek residents have been not only heard but acted upon.
Because of their advocacy, Napa Creek and the river bypass are now both scheduled to begin construction in 2010, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreeing that the creek will start first, she said.
“The challenge for someone who sits on a board with multiple constituencies is doing as much as you can for as many as you can,” Techel said. “It’s trying to find the win-win.”
But win-win isn’t what Napa Creek residents are after, Techel said. They want their defenses to be built now.
The flood board is trying to speed up work on the creek while not putting the river, which floods downtown, the Oxbow District and
Local flood officials have used the plight of creek residents to persuade the federal government to allocate more money for river and creek work.
When In Harm’s Way gathered 800 names on a petition asking for immediate attention, local officials took it to
The flood project is falling behind schedule due to inadequate federal funding, Techel said. This is why the city of
The city is optimistic it will receive a $3 million federal grant to fund culverts along Napa Creek at
It galls residents that the flood project will embark next year on a $40 million effort to relocate a railroad bridge and build a new one over the planned bypass — all part of the river’s Oxbow defenses — before tackling Napa Creek.
This is largely a matter of timing, said Heather Stanton, the local flood manager. Railroad work is ready to go to bid in 2008, while creek defenses aren’t completely designed, she said.
The flood district risked losing federal money for 2008 if it didn’t proceed with what was ready to be built,
Kerr isn’t fully convinced by this explanation. It seems like another example of flood officials massaging the highly bureaucratic system to keep the river the top priority, she said.
Because federal funding is falling behind what is needed, the prospect of Napa Creek starting construction in 2010 is not realistic, Kerr said. It could easily be three or four years later.
To residents who live next to a waterway that has topped its banks 12 times since 1993, that’s bad news, Kerr said. Residents could be hit with another two or three floods that could otherwise have been prevented, she said.
“I don’t think anyone can imagine the roar of the water — how loud it was,” Kerr said of the New Year’s Eve flood that struck in the middle of the night and lasted until dawn.
Neither she nor Howe have yet taken the city up on its annual offer of free sandbags. Kerr said she will wait until she sees Uva restaurant on
“It’s so back-breaking,” Kerr said, that she puts off sandbags until a flood emergency is at hand.
Fogarty, who estimates his New Year’s Eve flood losses at $30,000, doesn’t plan to need sandbags for the next flood. He’s spent two years working to make the bottom three feet of his house floodproof.
When the water begins rising, he expects to slip into his basement, screw a final piece of board into place, caulk it, then ride out the storm inside a waterproof bubble.
“A lot of people say we’re crazy,” Fogarty said of his decision to buy a house in a neighborhood vulnerable to regular inundation. “But look, it’s quiet, it’s an easy walk to downtown and it’s beautiful.”
Napa Creek, when viewed this week from Howe’s backyard deck, was indeed lovely. Autumn leaves floated on pools of water that gently flowed toward the river.
There was no hint of trouble. #
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/11/30/news/local/doc474f1fc57e650136255782.txt
NEW
Construction starts on $181 million state building downtown
By Mary Lynne Vellinga, staff writer
The state of
Construction began this week on an $181 million "green" replacement for the state's nearly 40-year-old heating and cooling plant at
The new central plant will include a 10-story-tall storage tank to hold 4.25 million gallons of chilled water, allowing the plant to cool its water during off-peak hours.
Two four-story cooling towers will eliminate the need to discharge heated water into the
Skanska
The gasifier, conceived by the environmentally conscious administration of Gov. Jerry Brown, was intended to burn lawn waste from the city of
The grass, leaves and other trimmings turned out to be too wet to burn, however, and the gasifier building was never really used, except for aerobics classes.
Built in 1969, the rest of the existing plant is a boxlike, nondescript structure that produces steam and chilled water to heat and cool the state Capitol and 22 other state-owned buildings. The buildings are connected to the plant by underground pipes, which will remain in place.
The new structure will be more eye-catching - with the 140-foot-tall water tower being the most prominent feature.
Eric Lamoureux, a spokesman for the state Department of General Services, said his department responded to neighborhood concerns that the tower would be ugly.
"We really want something that's going to be a signature for that community; an art piece," Lamoureux said.
He said the design is still being fine tuned. Preliminary renderings show a cylindrical tower, surrounded by mesh that creates a flared silhouette reminiscent of the cooling tower for a nuclear power plant. Lamoureux said the tower would be covered in two shades of blue metal tile, ranging from deep blue at the bottom to light blue at the top.
The more technologically advanced new plant will use just a tenth of the water needed by the existing plant, according to General Services. Solar panels will produce energy to power the office space inside.
A news release issued by General Services said the new plant would be built to qualify for a "gold" rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.
"Four years ago the governor challenged us to demonstrate leadership in energy efficiency and environmental responsibility in state buildings," Consumer Services Secretary Rosario Marin said in a prepared statement. "This new central plant will do just that and help reduce the impact state facilities have on climate change."
Several years ago, the heating and cooling project was part of a larger state building plan for the area to the southwest of the Capitol. In addition to the heating and cooling facility, the state was going to build a new high-rise headquarters for the state Resources Agency.
The central plant portion, considered more critical, continued as a separate project last year after the projected price tag for the office complex skyrocketed to more than $500 million.
On Monday, the state announced that it was scrapping plans to build the new Resources Agency headquarters because of the state's budget situation and rising construction costs.
In connection with the larger plan, the state held community meetings and pledged to cooperate with the city on design issues. But in the past year, the central plant has proceeded on its own with little public input.
City officials said they have no idea what the new plant will look like. "I haven't seen a thing on it," said Robert Chase, the city's chief building official.
The state addressed one major city concern by moving the cooling towers from a proposed site on the river and putting them with the rest of the plant on
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