[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 11/29/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

November 29, 2007

 

1.  Top Item

 

Huge levee project up for a vote; But critics urge a delay to gauge the impact on Natomas residents and the environment

Sacramento Bee – 11/29/07

By Matt Weiser, staff writer

 

It's the biggest levee-strengthening project in Sacramento history, deemed critical to the safety of the city's fast-growing northern flank. But it will demand sacrifice from residents of the Natomas basin.

 

So it's no surprise that the project has attracted a big dose of opposition from people like Linda Henson, who lives on Howsley Road and may lose her backyard to levee improvements.

 

"We're going to go down fighting," Henson said. "My other two neighbors are losing homes and barns. I just feel this project is wrong, and it's going to hurt more people in the long run."

 

The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency is expected to vote today on bolstering nearly 25 miles of levees in Natomas. Stein Buer, SAFCA executive director, said the agency is moving rapidly because Sacramento is America's bull's-eye for flood risk.

 

The agency wants to start work in summer 2008. Buer said delays could add years to the region's flood exposure.

 

"It burns in our hearts that we have an opportunity to do things right here if we move expeditiously," he said. "We would be remiss if we didn't drive forward with all the energy we have."

 

A decade ago North Natomas levees were certified as meeting minimum standards – able to withstand great floods likely to occur once every 100 years. But a recent study found the levees remain vulnerable to underseepage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded the levees needed more work.

 

Critics, however, want the vote stalled to allow time to further analyze the impact on Natomas residents and potential harm to the environment.

 

The $400 million-plus project was unveiled two months ago. Since then, critics have emerged from all sides. Concerns range from traffic congestion and growth-inducing effects to a loss of trees and wildlife. Some fear the project will merely push the flood risk away from Natomas to other neighborhoods, reviving "levee wars" that prevailed in the early 1900s.

 

The project was made possible by Proposition 1E, a property tax increase approved by 82 percent of Sacramento voters in April. But the project was only conceptual then. Now it is clear that big changes are required to protect lives in the Natomas basin, a deep floodplain where more than 70,000 people live.

 

In some areas, levees will be raised 3 feet and widened by 300 feet. Land and homes must be bought from hundreds of people to accomplish this.

 

Today's meeting begins at 9 a.m. in the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors chambers. The SAFCA board is expected to vote on the project's environmental impact report and approve next summer's initial construction. Additional environmental reports will examine the impact of subsequent construction.

 

Nearly 5 million cubic yards of dirt must be moved for the new levees. Excavating dirt will temporarily eliminate hundreds of acres of wildlife habitat. Then, piling it against existing levees to create massive new levees will eliminate thousands of trees and disrupt traffic and utilities.

 

Government wildlife officials warn the project doesn't do enough to protect rare species like the Swainson's hawk. And some property owners say their lives will be upended.

 

"I'm not worried about dust and noise. I'm thinking about the intangibles," said Matt Breese, a small-business owner who may lose his home on Garden Highway. "We don't want to move. I've found a place where my kids can run through fields. They're free to roam and be kids. How do you reproduce that in a town like Sacramento?"

 

Garden Highway residents may have the most at stake. More than 150 homes were built on the waterside of the levee-top road under an old state exemption. These residents know they'll be flooded when the Sacramento River swells. Many elevated their homes in response. But they fear SAFCA's project will flood their homes even higher by holding back more water that would otherwise spill into Natomas.

 

Steve Bradley, chief engineer at the state Reclamation Board, acknowledged this concern. He said future homes built on the levee – or older homes seeking new building permits – may have to be raised higher as a result.

 

Rural levee districts north and west of Natomas share similar concerns. If Natomas levees are raised, they argue, they will be more likely to flood because water that would have spilled into Natomas will be diverted and cause flooding elsewhere.

 

"I think there's always a potential for that to happen when you create such a superior levee on one side compared to the other side," said Diane Fales, manager of Reclamation District 1001, north of Natomas and home to about 300 people. "There's a concern that it's going to lower our property values. There's just a lot of unanswered questions."

 

Buer said the project does not worsen flood risk for neighbors. Natomas levees are already higher, he said, and all levee improvements are planned for the land side of the current levee, so the river's capacity isn't reduced.

 

Hydraulic modeling also showed the project causes virtually no change in water elevation in the river, though critics question this finding.

 

The dispute sounds a lot like the levee wars of a century ago when property owners raised levees after floods, diverting subsequent flooding to neighbors. That competition gave rise to government flood control on the Sacramento River, overseen by the Reclamation Board.

 

SAFCA did not study consequences to the system if neighbors raise their levees in response. That's too remote to consider, Buer said, because urbanization in these levee districts is unlikely and they are too poor to raise their levees.

 

Bradley said the Reclamation Board may find differently.

 

"In my opinion, a lot of this stuff is not being looked at correctly by SAFCA, by the board, maybe not even by the Army Corps," he said. "They're looking at them as individual projects and not as part of the whole. It's going to be fairly complicated to figure out who's affected and who's not." #

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/529139.html

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