Quit Tempting Mother Nature

As California begins collecting federal aid to repair 1997 flood damage, it’s well to keep in mind that there will be future flooding in those very same places. Planners should take a hard look at their zoning rules before allowing wholesale reconstruction or new construction in the most vulnerable flood plains.

For now, the good news is that the Clinton administration has asked Congress for $907 million in disaster relief for Northern and Central California. The money would be used for loans to property owners, to rebuild damaged public facilities and for levee repairs.

A big chunk of that, $176 million, is sought for Yosemite National Park. Yosemite Valley, famed for its towering rock walls and dashing waterfalls, suffered extensive damage in the January floods.

Some of the Yosemite money would be used to relocate major riverside campgrounds to higher land, as envisioned in the 1980 Yosemite master plan to relieve congestion on the valley floor. Park officials have wisely seized on the flood as an opportunity to vigorously implement portions of the plan that have lain dormant for nearly two decades.

The Yosemite experience is an example for the rest of California. Speaking on the same day that President Clinton proposed his relief package, the director of civil works for the Army Corps of Engineers said the corps is deciding which levees will be rebuilt and which will not.

In many cases, Maj. Gen. Russell Fuhrman told a U.S. House committee, the wisest course is to move development out of the flood plain. Fuhrman’s comments echoed the urgings of several officials who addressed a workshop conducted in Sacramento last week by the Water Education Foundation.

In particular, UC Davis geologist Jeffey F. Mount, an expert on rivers, said the common concept of allowing development within areas subject only to a statistical 100-year flood “is a zoning strategy which I believe promotes disaster.” It certainly is a concept that offers a false sense of security. The Sacramento area effectively has suffered three such floods in just the past dozen years.

Enlightened federal, state and local officials must work to break the cycle of flood, disaster relief, more flood, more disaster relief. Otherwise, Congress’ patience with California may wear thin and the stream of federal disaster dollars dry up.