Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 5, 2008
5. Agencies, Programs, People
YUBA
Yuba to borrow for levee work; County says it will take on debt of $33 million - Marysville Appeal Democrat
WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN TO BE REVIEWED:
Cambria releases draft environmental review for proposed water management plan - San Luis Obispo Tribune
FLOODPLAIN ISSUES:
Editorial: Mapping an escape; County's flood evacuation routes can't be ignored or taken for granted -
Recalling the day St. Francis Dam broke - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
YUBA
Yuba to borrow for levee work; County says it will take on debt of $33 million
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 3/5/08
By Andrea Koskey, staff writer
"Providing public safety is the outcome we are all looking for," County Administrator Robert Bendorf told supervisors Tuesday night.
The loan will supply the local match from the county for construction of the setback levee, which will enhance flood protection in
In August, the county was notified it would receive $138 million from the state through Proposition 1E if the county could provide the remaining $53 million for the $191.8 million project.
County officials anticipate $30 million to come from developer impact fees, leaving the remaining money to be borrowed by the county.
County staff presented two borrowing scenarios to supervisors. After nearly three hours, supervisors approved the second scenario of $33 million, which includes six years of interest.
"The price of land is dropping, and it will continue to drop," said Supervisor Dan Logue. "I want to give our staff some time to catch their breath before they have to start paying this back."
Bendorf said because repayment of the loan is largely based on developer impact fees, he is more confident borrowing additional money to provide more time to allow the market to bounce back.
By borrowing $33 million with six years of interest, the county will not need to begin repaying the loan until 2014. Payments are on an escalating scale beginning at $1.3 million and growing to $5.3 million over the next 40 years.
Bendorf noted the funding agreement is not valid until all parties involved, including the county, developers and the state, have signed it.
County officials expect construction to begin in April.
Regardless of the funding choice, supervisors agreed, the project needs to move forward.
"Little ole
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/county_61113___article.html/million_supervisors.html
WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN TO BE REVIEWED:
An review of environmental impacts should a proposed plan to manage
The 36-page document looks at a Water Master Plan prepared by the Cambria Community Services District.
The plan includes ways to increase water supply through construction of a seawater desalination plant, conserve water through recycling, and lessen water demands by reducing the number of residences that could ultimately be built in the community.
The draft Environmental Impact Report is available for review at the CCSD office at
The district will begin receiving public comment at its monthly meeting beginning at 12:30 p.m. March 27 at the Veteran Memorial Buidling,
For more information, call CCSD engineer Bob Gresens at 927-6223. #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/breakingnews/story/295746.html
FLOODPLAIN ISSUES:
Editorial: Mapping an escape; County's flood evacuation routes can't be ignored or taken for granted
Many
That was certified in January, when Federal Emergency Management Agency officials released maps showing that 730 miles of county levees wouldn't be able to hold back a so-called 100-year flood (a disaster estimated to occur once every 100 years).
Now, officials at the county's Office of Emergency Services have released another set of maps.
They show evacuation routes, potential floodwater depths and other information residents would need if a levee breach occurred.
The county's maps aren't related to FEMA's maps. The federal maps, among other things, will require homeowners to purchase flood insurance if their property is located in designated flood zones.
The county maps, though, are important because they provide vital information about what residents should do if disaster strikes.
In that sense, they're a bit like the 1950s and '60s Cold War nuclear fallout shelters. Unfortunately, they could have the same fate.
Back then, Americans gradually stopped paying attention to fallout shelter warnings and duck-and-cover drills. The notion of impending nuclear Armageddon became less believable. Ducking and covering seemed comically futile.
County officials must assure the same complacency doesn't set in regarding its flood evacuation maps.
Residents must know what supplies they'll need, what the potential danger is in their areas, where "rally points" are located, where help will be available and what evacuation routes to follow.
At some point, those escape routes and rally points should be marked clearly.
Most importantly, residents must be convinced the flood threat is genuine. Those 100-year floods have an uncanny tendency to develop more like every 10 years.
The threat is dangerously real until hundreds of miles of old, earthen levees winding through the county are upgraded and reinforced.
The maps - available online at recordnet.com and in public libraries - can't become another government study that goes unused and unread. They need to be the basis of legitimate and practical emergency planning.
The basics of that plan should be readily available and fully understood by every county resident. #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/A_OPINION01/803050301/-1/A_OPINION06
Recalling the day St. Francis Dam broke
By Carol Bidwell, staff writer
It was 11:57 p.m. March 12, 1928, when the rumbling started.
The St. Francis Dam in San Francisquito Canyon, about 10 miles east of present-day Interstate 5 near Saugus, had given way, unleashing a 185-foot-high wall of water down the Santa Clara River and 54 miles to the sea.
"I looked out the window upstairs and there was that water coming in great big white waves," Nazarene Eva Donlon, the daughter of an El Rio rancher, recalled years after the flood. "You could smell that water."
The Donlon family was able to make it to higher ground. Others weren't as fortunate.
Officials at the time estimated that the flood killed 450 people - including 20 entire families - although the death toll eventually topped 600 as more bodies were unearthed over the years.
The flood also washed away 1,240 homes and other buildings, inundated 23,500 acres of farmland and washed out four railroad bridges, eight miles of railroad track and untold miles of roads and highways, according to a committee set up immediately afterward to assess the damage.
Among the first to die were workers at two power-generating stations and Edison Co. employees and their families who lived in homes just below the dam.
By 12:40 a.m., the water reached
Still, there was no official warning that the dam had burst.
"The St. Francis Dam is out! We've got a helluva flood coming!" was the frantic message shouted over and over by a few
"We jumped in our cars and took off," said Bismark M. Basolo Sr., a Fillmore farmer. "We could see the water coming up the highway. ... It just missed us by about 10 feet. We was lucky to get out with our son and ourselves."
His brother, who was a little slower, was overtaken by the flood.
Landslides had been reported around the dam for several days. But William Mulholland, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and other officials had inspected the dam 12 hours before the collapse and pronounced it sound.
Many downstream residents never knew of the existence of the dam, built quietly in the mountains to store water brought from the
E. Domingo Hardison, a Fillmore citrus rancher, said his father had checked out the dam a few days earlier.
"When he came back, he said, `That dam is going out!' There certainly was trouble there."
The dam was leaking and the water was muddy, Hardison said. To the farmers, that was a sign that the dirt underneath was shifting dangerously.
That night, the dam crumbled on both its east and west flanks, unleashing 12.5 billion gallons of water.
Warning signs As the sun rose, the business of cleaning up, finding and burying the dead, and feeding and clothing the survivors began.
Merchants emptied their stores of shoes and clothing, the Red Cross began a nationwide drive to feed and house the survivors, and those untouched by the flood pitched in to help their less fortunate neighbors.
Somis ranch manager William F. Miller said all the community's tractors were mobilized to move dirt and sand - and dig for bodies.
Classes at local high schools were abandoned and students and Boy Scouts helped search for flood victims, who were laid out and hosed off with garden hoses so their identity could be established.
In some areas, the bodies of men, women and children "were hanging in trees," recalled Harold Bookman of Bardsdale, south of Fillmore.
"They made every place a morgue, including the school," said Nazarene Donlon, who recalls seeing rows of bodies covered by sheets and blankets - and grieving family members searching for lost loved ones among the dead. Mass burials were conducted in every riverside community.
As the cleanup and mourning went on, the clamor to know who was responsible for the tragedy began.
Mulholland, who'd picked the site for the dam, designed it and vouched for its soundness, was the most likely target.
One
At first, there was talk that
But geologists and engineers have generally agreed that the collapse was triggered by the instability of the underlying soil and cracks caused by an earthquake fault running underneath the dam.
Both sides of the structure failed, leaving only a center section standing. That was later dynamited to remove any danger to inquisitive hikers and, some said, to remove the last traces of what was a vast embarrassment to the city of
The dam, said a report to the governor, had been doomed to fail.
"Don't blame anybody else; you just fasten it on me," an anguished Mulholland said at a coroner's inquest into the flood deaths. "If there was an error of human judgment, I was that human."
A coroner's jury had the final word:
Construction and operation of so great a dam with so great a destructive force, the jury concluded, "should never be left to the sole judgment of one man, no matter how eminent, without checking by independent expert authorities, for no one is free from error." #
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