Calif. flood plan calls for up to $17B in repairs
By GOSIA WOZNIACKA
Associated Press Published: Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 - 10:31 am
Copyright 2011 . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
FRESNO, Calif. -- California water officials recommended a historic investment in the state's aging flood control system Friday, saying more than half of the state's levees do not meet standards and the system needs up to $17 billion in repairs and investment.
The Department of Water Resources' release of the first statewide flood plan follows a call by Gov. Jerry Brown to refocus state efforts on preparing for the effects of a warming climate as floods from a faster-melting snowpack already place increased strain on the state's aging levees.
Officials and experts say the state's flood control system - a piece-meal collection of 14,000 levees and other infrastructure built along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers by farmers and local governments over the last 150 years - is no longer adequate.
Once a mostly agricultural region that was lightly populated, the Central Valley where the rivers meet has experienced rapid development and population growth.
"The system is based on antiquated technologies, so you have to upgrade it and keep in mind changing societal demands," said Jeffrey Mount, professor and founding director of Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.
Central Valley's flood risk ranks among the nation's highest. About 1 million Californians now live in floodplains and levees protect an estimated $69 billion in assets, including the state's water supply, major freeways, agricultural land and the valley's remaining wetland and riparian habitat, said Mike Mierzwa, senior engineer in the Central Valley Flood Protection Office.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a freshwater source for two-thirds of California's population and irrigates millions of acres of farmland throughout the state.
While officials have long known the flood control system was in disrepair, it's the first time they have studied it as a whole, come up with long-term solutions and a priority for investments.
More than half of 300 miles of aged urban levees do not meet modern design criteria, according to newly released analysis. And about 60 percent of 1,230 miles of non-urban levees have a high potential for failure from under-seepage, through-seepage, structural instability, and/or erosion.
In addition, about half of the 1,016 miles of channels are believed to be inadequate to handle projected flooding. And two bridges are in need of repairs.
In 2006, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for California's levee system and ordered levee repairs to the 33 most critical spots. That same year, state voters approved nearly $5 billion in bond funds for flood protection projects statewide.
Legislators also mandated that the state develop a plan to reduce flood risks.
The plan calls for $14 billion to $17 billion in repairs and other investments - including the $5 billion in bond funds already approved. Investments would be spread over the next 20 to 25 years.
Officials said the money would come from a mixture of federal, state and local sources. Voters will need to approve another bond, Mierzwa said.
Most of the money - up to $6 billion - would be spent in urban areas, where thousands of homeowners and their property could be affected by a flood. Another $6 billion would go toward system-wide improvements.
The plan doesn't call for specific projects, but offers recommendations. Those include extensive bypass expansion and the construction of a new bypass; major improvements to intake, weir and gate structures; sediment removal projects; urban and rural levee repairs; fish passage improvements and ecosystem restoration.
The plan doesn't recommend building new reservoir storage, which is very expensive.
Focusing on other projects beyond levee repairs is a good step forward, Mount said.
"There's always the pressure to simply fix the problem, meaning just make the levies taller and stronger. That's the path of least resistance," he said.
By constructing and strengthening levees, Mount said, the state may actually induce development and growth behind the levees and hence increase flood risk. Thus the need, he said, to prioritize flood control investments to areas where risk reduction is greatest - and to choose wisely which areas to develop.
"Climate change has expanded our uncertainties," Mount said. "If trends associated with warming continue, we'll have to constantly upgrade the levees to match these conditions. So we have to consider this constant economic investment."
Environmental groups said the plan was a step in the right direction. Still, John Cain, Director of Conservation for California Flood Management at the nonprofit American Rivers, noted that one concern is the plan doesn't sufficiently tackle the effects of climate change, like sea level rise, and it isn't based on updated projections of what extreme floods could look like.
Another concern, he said, is that the state should not spend all the bond money on levees while leaving improvements such as bypass construction for a later date when funds may not be available.
But Mierzwa said the plan calls for working on levees and other improvements simultaneously. The state is already putting together a team to start feasibility work for two bypass expansions, he said.
Thus far, state officials say they have spent about half of the $5 billion in bond funds on more than 200 projects. Those include flood emergency exercises, 120 critical levee erosion site repairs, the removal of three million cubic yards of sediment from the bypasses and substantial levee improvement projects, among others.
The Central Valley Flood Protection Board must adapt the plan by July 2012.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Stockton—
The first eyebrow-raising salvo in the fight between the cops and this city was the billboards."Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California: Stop laying off cops!" read one at the city's entrance. Other billboards posted by the Stockton Police Officers' Assn. depicted splattered blood, gave a running tally of the city's record number of homicides — and the city manager's phone number.
Since then, the fight moved closer to home: The police union bought the house next to City Manager Bob Deis.
"In 30 years of labor negotiations I've never seen anything like this," said Jonathan Holtzman, a San Francisco lawyer representing Stockton. "Tires slashed; late-night phone calls — but buying the house next door to the boss?"
As cash-strapped cities up and down the state demand concessions from employees, the police union in nearly bankrupt Stockton is fighting hard — and some say dirty — to keep the fiscal crisis from breaking its contract.
"Everybody knows that revenues in cities are down because of the recession. But in Stockton, it is more than that," said Officer Steve Leonesio, the union president. "The city spent money they didn't have on a sports arena and downtown structures and then when it all hit rock bottom they went after public safety. We're sticking up for what is right."
Born during the Gold Rush, Stockton, an inland port city of 292,000 where much of the Central Valley's agricultural exports set sail, doesn't have a "good" side and a "bad" side of town. Instead, there are pockets of inner blight and leafy, gracious neighborhoods intertwined throughout the city.
Leonesio, a SWAT team member, insists without a wink or a nudge that the location of the union's first real estate purchase is a coincidence.
He said that when the union was seeking to buy a house to diversify its investments, this home on North Country Club Boulevard was the only one it could find not surrounded by other foreclosures. Stockton, with a 20% unemployment rate, has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country (flip-flopping with Las Vegas for the dubious distinction of first).
Deis doesn't buy it.
"This is right out of 1930s Chicago, hardball union politics," he told the local paper, the Stockton Record.
FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article said that Stockton recorded the second highest homicide rate in the state last year among large cities, with 1,381 deaths, just behind Oakland, with 1,530. In fact, Stockton had the second highest violent crime rate in the state last year among large cities, with 1,381 violent crimes per 100,000 population, just behind Oakland, with 1,530 violent crimes per 100,000 population.
The city is suing the union to force the sale of the house. In court documents Deis states, "I believe the SPOA purchased the property ... for the sole purpose of coercing me in the exercise of my duties as city manager."
He describes a union member using a backhoe to clip trees during his wife and daughters' backyard birthday party.
The 315-member police force is down more than 25% from its highest staffing levels in 2008; and the city forced wage and benefit reductions on officers while trying to close a deficit of more than $20 million.
The union is suing the city, challenging its declaration of a fiscal emergency that allows it to break employees' contracts. If the union wins, the city — which is already flirting with bankruptcy — could owe up to $10 million in back wages. City leaders declined to comment on pending litigation.
Meanwhile, the union has rented the house — spiffed up after what neighbors describe as noisy repairs — to a "nice county retiree with two dogs," Leonesio said.
To his mind, the real estate more central to the dispute is the 10,000-seat sports arena, waterfront hotel, marina and other development the city helped finance in more prosperous times. Stockton has $87 million in outstanding redevelopment bonds that were sold in 2006.
On a recent evening, the glow of retro-style lampposts reflected in the waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
A few blocks away, neon lights announced a gleaming plaza of shops and a movie theater. The 16-screen theater and surrounding restaurants had less customers than the number of screens.
In front of a Starbucks, two policewomen struggled to handcuff a homeless woman who had punched a passing stranger.
"Another Wednesday night in Stockton," Mike Sota, 23, said as the woman, still screaming obscenities, was placed in the squad car and he returned to his job as a waiter at Moo Moo's Burger Barn. "At least this time, the cops got here in less than an hour."
Sota saves $50 from every paycheck toward moving out of town. He dreams of living on the other side of the coastal range, near the ocean.
"The people there are too glamour-like for me. But I'll just be that quiet guy out surfing at 4 a.m."
The restaurant's manager Jodi Cantrill, 33, has $2,000 saved for leaving.
"It's all the panhandlers and crackheads, the pop-pop-pop of gunshots. North, South, I'll flip a coin, I just don't want to be here anymore," she said.
Things used to be better at Moo Moo's. Even weeknights were packed. But the recession hit and business dwindled. The city cut bicycle officers from the plaza, the center of the city's redevelopment plan.
In June, an 11-year-old girl was shot in the leg while sitting on a bench with her brother outside the theater. Since then, the plaza has been nearly empty. Cantrill tells customers seeing a movie after dark to have the theater's security guard walk them to their cars when they leave.
In the early mornings, Cantrill walks the elegantly refurbished waterfront along the port where the state's cherries and almonds and rice leave California. She says the birds and the boats — and on the days that she is lucky, a seal — are antidotes for what she will see during the rest of her day.
"They did a good job of giving the waterfront a face-lift," she said. "But the city tried to dig for gold and they dug our grave."
