California’s Levees: Avoiding Another New Orleans

by Assemblyman Rick Keene

                                    757 words

  With a thriving economy spurred on by no new tax increases and a State deficit drastically reduced to $4 billion, California’s future burns bright. 

However, we now face a problem.  A big problem.  Since the Pat Brown era ended in 1967, politicians repeatedly put off serious investments in our infrastructure, and California now suffers the consequences.  With its infrastructure deteriorated and stretched to capacity, the old band-aids will no longer work.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that a necessary comprehensive strategy needs to address all aspects of our infrastructure, including the levee system.  California possesses over 2,600 levee miles divided into two categories:  project levees and non-project levees.  The State must repair and maintain the 1,600 miles of project levees, while local reclamation districts primarily maintain 1,000 miles of non-project levees. 

Many of the State’s levees provide 50 or 100 year flood protection, resulting in a 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 chance of the levee flooding each year.   Put another way, a home protected by a levee with 100 year flood protection has a 25% chance of flooding over the life of a mortgage.  Because even well maintained levees provide limited levels of flood protection, poorly maintained levees are especially dangerous.  The State has already identified many sites of disrepair and critical erosion sites in both levee categories.

The recent devastation in New Orleans teaches us that neglecting levees not only puts property and economies at risk, but more importantly puts lives at risk.  The 1,600 miles of levees the State must maintain protect over 500,000 people and some 200,000 structures. Though many face direct risk from eroding and poorly maintained levees, in the end, all Californians are financially at risk due to the State’s responsibility for damage caused by breeched levees.  Recently, the State paid a $428 million settlement to the 1986 Yuba County flood victims in which 3,000 homes flooded due to a broken levee.

Unreasonable environmental mitigation requirements represent the principal obstacle to making repairs as they cause considerable delays, sometimes adding several years to completion of a project.  Obtaining the numerous state and federal permits just begins the lengthy approval process while onerous implementation increases delays and costs.  For example, federal mitigation requires a 5 to 1 replacement for lost vegetation while the presence of threatened or endangered species often grinds projects to a halt.  

A prime example of environmental delays occurred in the 1990s when a Feather River levee repair project in Yuba County stalled for six years due to the presence of elderberry bushes which, in alleged cases, may provide a home to the endangered elderberry beetle.   Federal regulations required the local reclamation district to mitigate 43 elderberry bushes.  In the end, the State spent years and a total of $1.9 million ($44,000 per bush) to replant the required 5 to 1 ratio meanwhile neglecting the actual levee repairs.  Sadly, before repairs ever started, a torrential rainstorm caused the levee to break.   The severe flooding killed three people and destroyed most of the newly planted elderberry bushes.  Unreasonable regulations resulted in excessive waste and the loss of life.  I believe that public safety must no longer be subordinated to unreasonable environmental mitigation. 

From a cost perspective, these regulations greatly inflate repair costs, anywhere from 20% to 45% of a project for just the direct costs, not including the delays and process costs, presenting further challenges to fixing levees.  In the 1980s the State Reclamation Board and the Army Corps of Engineers regularly repaired these levees at about $300 per foot.  Now, however, a January 2005 Department of Water Resources study estimates it will cost as much as $5,000 per foot or $26 million per mile to fix levees.  These costs drive repairs into the absurd when you consider the miles of levees in need of repair. 

If we do not act now, people and property remain at dire risk.  Several legislative and bond proposals have recently been introduced to remedy this problem, many of which would send the State deep into debt for the next few decades.  Our policy objective in analyzing these measures must include requiring sound fiscal restraint, waiving excessive environmental regulations, and ensuring that monies go to actual levee construction and repair.  As the Ranking Assembly Republican on the Budget Committee and on the Infrastructure Conference Committee, I will continue to advocate for a fiscally responsible plan to fix levees that makes ensuring the safety of our communities our top priority.