Lawmakers Say Katrina Is Wake-Up Call to Repair State’s Levee System

Saying New Orleans’ catastrophic levee breaks were “a wake-up call for Californians,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Richard Pombo urged the Army Corps of Engineers Tuesday to turn its attention to the deteriorating condition of the state’s vast levee system.

“For years, we have known about the severe flood risks we face, but like Louisiana have been unable to find the funding to do the necessary repairs,” they wrote Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock.

Feinstein, a Democrat, and Pombo, a Republican from Tracy, cited predictions by UC Davis geologist Jeffrey Mount.

In a recently published paper, Mount predicted a 2-in-3 chance that a major earthquake or storm would cause widespread levee failures in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the next 50 years.

“A major breach in these levees could imperil hundreds of thousands of people and endanger most of the state’s water supply,” Feinstein said in a statement. “As we have seen in New Orleans, it would be a dramatic mistake to further delay the repairs that are necessary to protect communities from the ravages of floodwaters.”

Last year’s federal legislation reauthorizing CalFed, a state-federal delta improvement program, included $90 million for delta levee repairs.

But the funds have yet to be appropriated.

And that sum represents just a fraction of what would likely be needed.

“The $90 million is a very small beginning of what we’re going to be able to do to reduce the damage and risks in the delta,” said Brandon Muncy, chief of the water resources branch in the corps’ Sacramento district.

The Feinstein-Pombo letter raises the possibility of a joint federal and state study to explore long-term levee repairs.

“Clearly, over the long term, much more needs to be done. At this point, we don’t even have a good handle on the different options, and what they might cost,” wrote Feinstein and Pombo, who is chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Muncy said a pending water appropriations bill in Congress includes $900,000 that could help fund a comprehensive review of levee risks and repairs.

The state has started such a study, which the corps would be willing to join, Muncy said.

The delta, roughly the size of Orange County, is a maze of canals, wetlands and drained farmlands that lie below sea level.

It is a major source of drinking water for more than 20 million Californians.

It is crisscrossed by more than 1,000 miles of earthen levees, most built by farmers on top of deep layers of decomposing peat.

A major breach in the system not only would cause extensive flooding but also would send salt water rushing toward the massive pumps that divert irrigation and drinking water to the Central Valley and Southern California, officials said.

“In addition to the human tragedies, a massive flood could devastate our agricultural economy the same way Katrina decimated one of America’s largest and most important sources of energy,” Pombo said.