Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 12, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
FLOOD AGENCY CREATED:
Butte-Sutter flood control agency created to seek levee repairs - Associated Press
LEVEE REPAIR:
Marysville levee OK after mow - Marysville Appeal Democrat
ALLUVIAL FAN TASK FORCE:
Examining dangers; Hazards of development on alluvial fans studied - San Bernardino Sun
Editorial: Crucial safety study under way at last - San Bernardino Sun
FLOOD AGENCY CREATED:
Butte-Sutter flood control agency created to seek levee repairs
Associated Press – 12/11/07
The Sutter-Butte Flood Control Agency will compete for state grants to improve levees to boost protection to 100-year levels.
Much of
The new agency will meet for the first time Wednesday, when it is expected to appoint Bill Edgar, a former director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, as its interim executive director. #
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7692446
LEVEE REPAIR:
Marysville levee OK after mow
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 12/11/07
By John Dickey, staff writer
A section of levee near Marysville that was flagged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for too much vegetation passed a state inspection last month.
While the Army Corps has the final say about whether the section is taken off a list of unacceptable levees, the Marysville Levee Commission hopes the inspection results would do just that.
The commission is waiting to see if it will be reinstated for full Army Corps funding, Commission President Pat Ajuria told other commissioners Tuesday.
The state Department of Water Resources will notify the Army Corps once an official maintnance rating is assigned to the levee, according to an e-mail sent to the city.
“They said it looked good, met their standards,” said Ajuria, about the Nov. 15 state inspection.
Earlier this year, the spur levee between
The Army Corps designated it only “fair,” but the inspection occurred between mowings of the patrol road, said Ajuria.
Being on the list could make it difficult to get some grants for levee improvements. The spur levee was given to the state Reclamation Board in 1964, according to Army Corps records, and is not the ring levee that protects Marysville from flooding.
After a week of weed trimming by Superintendent Frank Miller and another worker, state inspectors found the Hallwood levee was acceptable and was being maintained “acceptably as a patrol road,” with adequate clearance for a vehicle to pass, according to a department memo.
The trimming was described as normal maintenance, accomplished with hand tools and chainsaws. #
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/levee_57617___article.html/corps_army.html
ALLUVIAL FAN TASK FORCE:
Examining dangers; Hazards of development on alluvial fans studied
By George Watson, staff writer
The group - comprising politicians, flood-control experts, developers and environmentalists - spent the meeting of the Alluvial Fan Task Force reviewing
The task force is charged with studying potential development in alluvial fans - the sort of floodplain that contributed to 16 deaths in the Christmas Day 2003 debris flows in
Local alluvial fans are from centuries of runoff made up of sediment spewed forth from canyons from the San Bernardino Mountains to
That's because, as history has shown through the sediment that is already there, a lot can be expelled rapidly out of the canyons - and the results can be deadly, along with expensive.
"It's a dream come true," Susan Lien Longville, director of the Water Resources Institute and wife of former Assemblyman John Longville, D-San Bernardino, who sponsored the legislation in 2004, said of Friday's session at the Riverside County Flood Control District. "This is a perfect time, especially because of a dip in development because of the economy, so next time we will be ready for thoughtful land-use decisions."
David Mlynarski, owner of MAPCO, a Southern California developer that has done significant work in
But he expressed some concern that the panel's recommendations would lead to regulations pinning more expenses on developers.
"When you are talking about new regulations, the idea is always good to start with, but if its not implemented properly and consistently, it can become an unfair problem," Mlynarski said. "The issue is, who pays for it? Do the people who settled the area long ago and are now making money by selling it get a free ride, and the developer is required to fix it?
Because of a continuing surge in population,
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich said he hopes to spur changes with regulatory agencies that slow down flood control districts' attempts to clean out basins and channels with unnecessary red tape.
And Norman Meek, a Cal State San Bernardino professor who is a geographer and geomorphologist, said he hopes to bring legislative change limiting where development takes place.
"I would like to see us exclude development from the most dangerous areas," Meek said. "It's in some ways too late for us in the
The task force tentatively plans to meet next on Jan. 4. The location has yet to be settled upon, but would likely be in one of several areas endangered by alluvial fans in
Meetings are planned through the winter, with outlines for a model ordinance for building on alluvial fans in April and a session in June to settle on the panel's recommendations. #
http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_7664723?source=email
Editorial: Crucial safety study under way at last
OUR VIEW: Panel must develop workable land-use guidelines - lives and money are at stake.
Moving at an almost geologic pace, the Alluvial Fan Task Force has at long last held a meeting.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation to create the task force in September 2004, nine months after the Christmas Day 2003 debris flows that resulted in 16 deaths in
The panel held its inaugural meeting Friday in
The task force's mission is to study potential development on alluvial fans in order to come up with land-use guidelines that can be adopted by the local governments that approve development plans.
After its slow start, the task force plans to move rather quickly for such an effort. It aims to outline a model ordinance for building on alluvial fans by April and to settle on its recommendations in June.
Alluvial fans, those fan-shaped accumulations of sand, rock and mud that have been pushed out of mountain canyons over the millennia, pose an inherent danger to those who live on them. The material that forms the fans does not issue from the canyons in a slow, imperceptible creep over the ages, but in rare, powerful flows of debris loosened and carried by flash floods through mountain canyons.
If such a flow takes place where housing has been built in its path down the alluvial fan, the results could be catastrophic.
Of course, it can be argued that all development in
True, but that does not mean we should willy-nilly court any and all risks. It makes perfect sense to build a framework for assessing the natural dangers for any particular site of potential development, and to limit the dangers to the extent possible or even to bar development where the dangers of flood and fire are judged too high.
That framework is what the task force is charged with putting together. It would not be imposed upon city or county governments, but it would offer a model that they could and should adopt. It would be similar in that respect to the model ordinance for fire-prone areas that Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to create, which we have supported.
The task force's job will not be easy. At the initial meeting, a developer fretted that developers will end up picking up too much of the tab for any new regulations, while a professor expressed his hope that legislative change would exclude development from the most dangerous areas. A wide range of viewpoints will have to be fused into a workable document.
Considering the dangers posed to homeowners, rescue workers and taxpayer pocketbooks when development goes into areas too prone to disasters such as wildfire, flood and debris flow, the outcome of this long-delayed effort is crucial. #
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