[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 3/19/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

March 19, 2009

 

Top Items–

 

State to deliver more water to Southern California

The Los Angeles Times

 

Rural Yolo County to be hit by higher flood insurance costs

The Sacramento Bee

 

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State to deliver more water to Southern California

The Los Angeles Times – 3/19/09

By Bettina Boxall

 

Allocations to water agencies will be increased by 5% thanks to storms in late February and March. But officials caution that deliveries will still be far less than normal.

 

State officials announced Wednesday they will deliver more water to Southern California this year than previously predicted but cautioned that shipments will remain well below normal.

State water resources director Lester Snow said "a series of very beneficial storms in February and early March" prompted his department to increase allocations to water agencies by 5%.

 

Snow's characterization of the state's water supply was not as bleak as earlier in the winter, but he said water managers remained "very concerned."

"We still consider we are in a drought and need to take special actions," Snow said.

With the winter storms, statewide snowpack has grown to 86% of average for this date. Reservoir storage is 75% of the norm and statewide precipitation levels are nearly normal.

Lake Oroville, the state system's biggest reservoir, contains more water than it did at this time last year. But San Luis, another important reservoir that holds water for both the state and federal systems, contains only about half what it usually does at this point.

Allocation levels will be reviewed next month and in May, but Snow said he did not anticipate an increase.

Projected deliveries from the State Water Project, which provides about a third of urban Southern California's water, have risen to 20% of full allocation, from 15%.

Agencies seldom get their full contractual allotments. Typical deliveries are closer to 70% of allocations. If they remain at 20%, water shipments would be among the lowest on record for the four-decade-old state project.

Los Angeles water and power commissioners cited the delivery figures Tuesday when they approved rate increases to promote a 15% drop in city water use.

The price increases, which will go into effect June 1 unless blocked by the City Council, will raise second-tier rates by 44%.

The second tier kicks in when a customer exceeds a base level of water use, which is set according to typical consumption for residents who live in the same climate zone and have a similar lot size.

Residents whose water use is already well within that base category should not be hit by the price hikes.

City commissioners also have approved restrictions on outdoor watering, which represents about 40% of single-family home consumption in Los Angeles.

Those curbs, which would limit sprinkling to two days a week, are awaiting City Council action.

Water managers and politicians advocating new reservoirs and infrastructure have described the state's water situation in dire terms.

"It's not just an issue of measuring the snowpack or forecasting runoff," Snow said.

He said supply is strained by population growth, curbs on pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect the threatened delta smelt, and a shift to permanent agricultural crops that can't be fallowed easily.

Pumping limits this year have cost the state system enough water to supply more than 300,000 homes, Snow said.

The restrictions, triggered by factors such as the smelt's proximity to the pumps and spawning conditions during winter and spring months, have not been as severe as in some previous years.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman said no smelt-related flow limits were in place until March 3.#

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water19-2009mar19,0,1862502.story?track=rss

 

 

Rural Yolo County to be hit by higher flood insurance costs

The Sacramento Bee – 3/19/09

By Hudson Sangree

Residents in three Yolo County hamlets – Clarksburg, Yolo and Knights Landing – say their towns haven't flooded since levees were built in the early 20th century.

 

But now, in the midst of a devastating economic downturn, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has redrawn its flood maps – which are the basis for federal flood insurance premiums – and the unincorporated towns will be reclassified as high-risk flood zones come 2010.

 

FEMA officials insist the changes are long overdue, that the little towns have substandard levees and face the danger of catastrophic flooding should they fail.

But residents and local officials argue the changes will bring an end to economic development, especially plans to transform Clarksburg into a major wine area.

The revised flood maps also will dramatically increase flood insurance rates for hundreds of homeowners, many of whom are struggling to make their mortgage payments.

 

"It's gross bureaucratic overkill," said Mike McGowan, the Yolo County supervisor who represents Clarksburg and is fighting the plan.

 

Leaning on the back of a pickup truck in the town of Yolo, lifelong resident Alfred Tafoya, 73, put it more bluntly. "It's a rip-off," he said.

 

FEMA's remapping, begun in 2005, has caused anxiety as the agency seeks to minimize flood risks in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Localities face spending huge sums on levee upgrades or watching insurance rates skyrocket and new construction stagnate.

 

In highly populated areas deemed hazardous – including West Sacramento – local officials have at least some ability to push back, and a much better chance of raising funds for levee testing and repairs.

 

West Sacramento has embarked on an ambitious, and expensive, levee improvement project, funded in part by local taxes and assessments.

 

Rural areas can't fix levees

 

The options are fewer in the unincorporated areas, which lack money or political clout.

 

There are no funds for testing the levees, some built by farmers nearly a century ago, let alone the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to bring them up to modern standards.

 

Yolo County officials estimate it could cost anywhere from $8 million to $18 million per mile to upgrade the county's 175 miles of levees.

 

At town hall meetings last week, residents in Knights Landing and Clarksburg heard how they will be required to buy flood insurance at much higher rates – from $800 to nearly $3,000 a year – and to elevate any new buildings well above the projected floodwaters. Residents of Yolo will be briefed Monday.

 

For the most part, they came away resigned, worried and in many cases, angry. Some think the government is trying to shift liability for levee failures to local residents or say the higher flood insurance is a backdoor tax.

 

In Clarksburg, the Heringer family has been farming the land for six generations.

 

The Heringers have grown wheat, corn and sugar beets. And for the past 30 years, they've harvested wine grapes.

 

In that time, the Clarksburg region has become known for its quality grapes, and family-owned Bogle Vineyards has become a major winemaker.

There are others, including the Heringers, who have started their own wine labels.

 

Steve Heringer, 62, said winemaking is a way for his family farm of 350 acres to sustain itself economically.

 

At the Old Sugar Mill in Clarksburg, the family bottles petite sirah, chardonnay and barbera. "The grapes are brought right here from the ranch," Heringer said.

His son Michael Heringer, 29, is the winemaker. They produce about 1,200 cases a year.

 

The family would like to expand, including building its own tasting room and winery. But that won't happen if all new construction has to be anywhere from 7 to 20 feet off the ground, Steve Heringer said.

 

The costs of construction would be too great, and lenders wouldn't take the risk, he said.

 

Without a number of wineries, along with restaurants and accommodations, Clarksburg won't ever become the mini-Napa Valley that many envision, he said.

"You need a certain critical mass," he said.

 

Flood threat disputed

 

In Yolo, Alfred Tafoya sat with his brothers George and Richard near the home their father bought in 1922.

 

Nearby, Cache Creek cut a steeply eroded channel on the edge of town. The creek, which had previously caused areas of north Woodland to be put in a 100-year flood zone, is known for its quick rising waters during storms.

 

Fran Borcalli, manager of floodSAFE Yolo, a pilot program to increase protection from Cache Creek flooding, said if the creek breached its levee, it would "probably blow houses off their foundations."

 

But Tafoya said the creek had never flooded Yolo. He thought there was little danger of flooding in the future.

 

"We're in a three-year drought," Tafoya said, "and they're trying to sell us flood insurance."

 

In Knights Landing, Warren King, 63, said he'd been born and raised in the town and had never seen the Sacramento River flood the streets.

 

He said the three dozen residents who attended the town hall meeting weren't happy about the changes that could hike their flood insurance premiums. "What's Hurricane Katrina got to do with us?" he asked.

 

But he said he couldn't do much to change FEMA's plans. "They've already got their minds made up," he said.

 

For the past three years, FEMA has been on a mission to update and digitize its flood-risk maps.

 

The maps once relied on assumptions that existing levees were adequate. But the new maps recognize only the levees that can be proved by locals to meet strict standards established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 

The testing is expensive, and in the case of many Yolo County levees, pointless because they'd clearly fail.

 

Bob Webber, manager of Reclamation District 999 in Clarksburg, walked the levee road along Elk Slough. The levee, he said, was probably pushed up by farmers before 1918, and was made out of dredgings from the slough.

 

Willow and sycamore grew freely on its banks, while thickets of blackberries and foot-tall grasses cover its sides. Ninety years of wind and water had eroded a step drop-off on the water side.

 

Webber said it's a far cry from Corps of Engineers standards requiring levees to be wide, with gently sloping sides and hardly any vegetation.

Borcalli said none of the county levees has been shown to meet the corps standards.

 

For flood mapping purposes, FEMA just assumes the levees don't exist, said Eric Simmons, who has led FEMA's remapping effort there.

He said people need to be aware of the hazards.

 

"Those persons who feel the timing couldn't be worse," he said, "would probably feel the timing would never be good." #

 

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1711708.html

 

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