Break in Levee Unleashes a Flood of Worry

Standing on high ground, Rick Marcucci pointed to the lake that used to be his farm. When a levee broke two weeks ago, a rush of water drowned his neatly combed fields of corn, tomatoes and asparagus.

But the threat of flooding comes with the territory in these low-lying farmlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where 450,000 acres are protected by dirt barriers.

“Our problem is that we’re below sea level,” said Marcucci, 45. “This happened here before. I guess you just hope it doesn’t happen to you.”

This is farming in the delta, a perilous and costly enterprise.

Farmers look at the sunken fields and see some of the richest soil in the country. State water officials, meanwhile, look at the same area and see a disaster waiting to happen.

When a levee burst here June 3, it highlighted the delicate balance along the delta.

The delta, fed by rivers carrying rain and snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada, provides two-thirds of California residents with fresh drinking water distributed through the California Aqueduct. The delta is also a major source of water for Central Valley farms.

A levee break causes a radical shift in water along the delta, as fresh water floods the low-lying areas. The vacuum draws in saltwater from San Francisco Bay, which is connected to the delta through a series of bays and rivers. The saltwater then contaminates the drinking-water supply.

The levee break in Holt forced officials to shut down the pumping of fresh water out of the delta for three days until its salt content could be reduced to normal levels.

On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requested that President Bush declare a “major disaster” in the flooded area around Holt, a move that would make more federal aid available.

The breach has renewed concerns among state water officials about the aging levees and the delta’s islands, which are sinking because of farming activity that is increasing the potential for problems.

“We think about levees all the time,” said Ron Gastelum, CEO of Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District, noting that 18 million people in Southern California rely on the delta for 40% to 60% of their water.

The state and federal governments don’t know what caused the levee to break or whether other levees in the area could also be on the verge of collapse. Of the state’s 6,000 miles of levees, 4,300 miles are on private land where state regulations do not apply.

Some experts question whether farming should even continue on the land if it jeopardizes the state’s water resources every time a levee breaks. If the farms were abandoned, the levees could be gradually removed, experts said, creating a more stable system of wetlands that would protect the drinking-water source.

“Does it make sense to continue this farming while islands sink deeper and deeper and the risk for fresh water gets greater?” asked Curt Schmutte, chief levee engineer for the state Department of Water Resources.

Farmers, meanwhile, defend their maintenance of levees, saying it is in their best interest to make sure they don’t break.

“These are some of the better levee systems in the delta,” said Kurt Sharp, who lost 600 acres of crops in the recent flood. “We never thought we’d lose a levee where we lost it.”

Like many farmers in the delta, Sharp is carrying on a family tradition. His ancestors came to California from Portugal four generations ago, fortifying the levees while growing alfalfa and corn. He took over the farm about a decade ago when his grandfather died.

“That’s our livelihood out there,” he said.

The recent levee breach wiped out 12,000 acres of crops and sent 65 billion gallons of saltwater into the delta.

Farmers in this town, 20 miles west of Stockton, first noticed water trickling through the levee on the morning of June 3. By the next day, the breach had expanded to 450 feet and water had turned the land, known as Upper and Lower Jones Tracts, into a giant lake.

Jim Defremery was working in his fields when he saw waves gush through the breach. Floodwater had claimed his crops once before, when another levee broke in 1980. Defremery, 67, knew the only thing he could save was the equipment. So he drove his tractors to high ground and threw open the doors of his barn, hoping the water would pass through instead of knocking it over.

He tried to do the same for his house, but sheriff’s deputies stopped him. The water was up to his ankles, and the time for strategy had passed.

“The only thing left to do was to run,” he said.

As long as there have been levees and farmers in the delta, there have been breaches and floods. Chinese laborers built most of the levees in the mid-19th century, helping farmers reclaim the land after the California Gold Rush.

In 1967 the state began pumping water out of the delta, an ideal source of fresh drinking water from the Sierra Nevada snowmelt. But throughout the years, levee collapses continued to disrupt the pumping.

Since 1900, levees have broken 157 times in the delta and islands have flooded 111 times. The state shouldered the majority of the costs. In the last three decades, the state has spent more than $190 million on private and public levees in the delta. In addition, the federal government has spent hundreds of millions in disaster aid and repairs.

This month’s levee break ruined $45 million worth of crops and property and is expected to cost $48.7 million to repair.

After the initial break, workers contained the flood to Jones Island by shoring up nearby levees. Carp and bass now swim where wheat and alfalfa used to grow. The tips of trees and utility poles stick out of the water like straws stuck into a murky milkshake.

Today, most levees in the delta are maintained by farmers, who hire civil engineers to monitor the aging berms.

Farmers say they’re doing their job, but officials say that’s not always the case.

“It’s been an ordeal in some cases to get locals to maintain their levees,” said Schmutte, the water resources engineer.

Federal studies show that even public levees maintained by the government are problematic. Last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inspected 300 miles of levees on the Sacramento River. They found 184 eroded sites; 25 were so severely damaged that they posed flood threats.

And maintaining levees may get tougher, experts say.

Many of the delta’s islands are sinking an inch every year because farming activities expose soil to the air, causing it to decompose. Some islands now lie more than 25 feet below sea level.

“They’re not islands anymore. They’re holes,” Schmutte said.

While alarming, the threat from added saltwater was far from desperate. Southern California, for example, has enough water reserves to last for more than six months. But it sparked concerns over the possibility of multiple levee failures, which could contaminate the water supply so much that pumping would have to be halted for months.

The answer, some legislators say, is more money.

“This should be a wake-up call,” said state Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden), whose district includes the delta region. He said the levee break was not the fault of farmers but an indication that more public funds should be invested in the levees.

If the state uses fresh water from the delta, he argued, the state should help the farmers maintain the levees.

A state and federal agency is now proposing a 10-year plan that would spend $42.2 million a year on levee programs.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Water Resources has floated another possible solution, less popular among farmers: returning the delta to marshland where only bushes and grass grow.

Converting the delta, however, would make the land worthless for farmers. The state would have to buy the property, then pay to convert the land.

But many farmers say they will never leave the land, despite its long history of floods.

“Why do I stay here? I ask myself that question sometimes too,” said Marcucci, the farmer who lost his crops.

“But what would I do with the land if I quit?” he said. “Where would I go to find a buyer?”

Defremery said it’s not just a question of land. Once a farmer, he says, always a farmer. “The farmer’s blood in you stays.”