Gov.’s action on levees a model of leadership

The media often get accused of not reporting the good news. OK, here’s some good news:

* Government has been working.

* Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been leading.

* My house may escape a Katrina catastrophe.

All summer and into the fall, big rock-laden barges have been plowing up and down the Sacramento River, pushed by tugboats. Towering cranes on other barges have been lifting these rocks -- ranging in size from 6 inches to 2 feet -- into eroded hollows in earthen levees that are the only flood protection for 300,000 Sacramentans.

California’s state capital has had the worst flood protection of any major city in America, we’re told. The levees are rated at less than 100-year protection -- meaning there’s a better than 1% chance each year of being flooded. New Orleans had 250-year protection before Katrina hit.

But because of Schwarzenegger, the leakiest levees have been plugged in time for the new flood season.

Give the guy credit. If it weren’t for him, the ambitious $175-million project wouldn’t have been attempted. Not by the state, of course. Not by the feds, certainly, although it was largely their duty. Nor by overwhelmed local governments.

Schwarzenegger didn’t just sit around, waiting and whining for the federal government to act, as it should have. He pounced on the problem. Even Democrats admit that the Republican governor exerted the kind of leadership that the public covets, but too often is denied.

“I think it’s part of his character,” says Democratic state Sen. Michael Machado of Linden in San Joaquin County, a farmer who is the Senate’s flood control expert. “He sees a need and works to get it done. There was a lot of levee damage last winter, and he wasn’t going to wait for the federal government to act.

“A lot of people, including myself, applaud him for taking the initiative.”

Of course, flood control doesn’t stir partisan juices like healthcare, environmental protection or workers’ comp. It doesn’t smack political nerves like public pension excesses or auto-pilot school funding, both of which Schwarzenegger tried to reform and got hammered. Who can be against flood control?

Well, nobody. Except President Bush wouldn’t spring very much for it.

And before Schwarzenegger came along, some governors penny-pinched and pared back levee maintenance to ostensibly balance the budget.

“We had significant cuts,” recalls state water director Lester Snow, who has worked for governors of both parties. “There was a lack of interest in tackling these issues in a couple of previous administrations.”

Schwarzenegger has significantly increased the levee fix-up budget. And that’s separate from the $4.1 billion in flood control bonds overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. That money will finance a 10-year program of levee repairs and upgrades.

Schwarzenegger wasn’t going to wait for the bonds, either.

Even before the 2005 Katrina devastation, the state of California was jarred with its own wake-up. An appellate court ruled that the state was liable for the 1986 collapse of a century-old levee on the Yuba River near Marysville.

The settlement for fewer than 3,000 people cost state taxpayers $464 million.

And months before that payout and Hurricane Katrina, Schwarzenegger saw firsthand how vulnerable the Delta is.

The Delta is a mixing bowl of several rivers that supplies drinking water for 24 million people and irrigation for 3 million acres. It includes 60 islands that lie below sea level, kept dry by 600 miles of old levees.

A major earthquake could cause several levee breaks, sucking ocean water into the mixing bowl and forcing the shut-off of water to Southern California. Repairs could take years.

One levee did collapse in mid-2004, flooding an island and its farms. And this wasn’t even flood season. The new governor went down to take a look.

“He talked to the people who lost their resources,” Snow says. “On site, he authorized me to immediately begin closing the breach. He saw firsthand the fragileness of the Delta.”

Leap ahead to a ferocious winter in 2005-06. Rivers were roaring out of the Sierra, and the governor was getting antsy. The fact that he was running for reelection especially spurred him.

The state identified 24 particularly weak spots along the Sacramento River, from the Delta to Chico, roughly 100 miles north of Sacramento. Later, nine more bad sites were listed.

Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency, allowing him to dip into emergency funds for about $100 million and suspend environmental and contracting rules.

The governor urged Bush to also declare a federal emergency and chip in with substantial funds. By law, the feds usually pay for 75% of major flood repairs.

The president refused the emergency declaration -- there wasn’t an emergency yet, he noted -- but did agree to streamline the issuance of federal levee-repair permits. That expedited the work.

“It was unheard of cooperation from the federal agencies,” says Les Harder, state deputy water director who’s the flood expert. “Unprecedented, unbelievable.”

But the feds only would put up $30 million, which basically was obtained by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Schwarzenegger, meantime, secured $500 million from the Legislature and wound up lending the Army Corps of Engineers money so it could help the state shore up the levees. All 33 holes now have been plugged.

An additional 71 soft spots also have been found and are being hardened. That work, along with levee testing and local grants, will use up most of the $500 million.

“The governor told us to do it,” Harder says. “We could have been waiting for the federal government, and it wouldn’t have been done for years. Chances are, one or more of those sites would have failed this flood season.”

Schwarzenegger came to Sacramento promising to be an “action, action, action, action” governor. In flood control, he has been. And that’s good news for everyone.

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.