If the State Doesn’t Shore Up Levees, We Could Be Drinking Salt Water

Right up front, I’ll admit to having a conflict of interest: I live under the shadow of a leaky levee along the Sacramento River.

So when the governor declares a state of emergency before a flood to expedite fixing the worst leaks, I really don’t care about any political motives. Just fill the holes. Shore up the crumbling banks.

And when the governor and Legislature are facing a Friday deadline to negotiate an infrastructure bond package for the June ballot, there also are other things I’m not immediately concerned about: Highways, transit, affordable housing, even schools. They can all wait until the November election. But better flood protection cannot.

As my new hero, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, says: “Even though, yes, it is kind of odd [to declare a] disaster before the disaster happens ... let’s think a little bit differently for a change. Let’s not wait for a disaster to happen, because it’s going to cost 100 times more.”

He adds: “This place would be flooded, right here where we are sitting.”

He’s talking to reporters in the state Capitol.

And while many people might applaud that scenario -- submerging the control center of California government -- I have a very different perspective.

If the levee broke where I live -- in the Pocket Area south of downtown Sacramento -- my driveway would be under 3 feet of water within five hours. In a week, the Pocket would be a huge, 17-foot-deep lake.

In all, 300,000 Sacramentans live in the path of any flood.

This place has the worst flood safeguards of any major city in America. The levees are rated at less than 100-year protection -- meaning you’ve got a 1% chance each year of being flooded.

New Orleans had a 250-year protection level before Katrina hit, killing at least 1,300.

“Most of New Orleans’ levees did fine,” says Les Harder, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources. “It was the weak spots that collapsed. All it takes is one weak spot and you’re literally dead.”

Downriver in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, there’s a slightly different problem. The Delta is the state’s mixing bowl, the supplier of drinking water for 24 million Californians and irrigation for 3 million acres of farmland.

The Delta includes nearly 60 islands lying below sea level, kept dry by 600 miles of deteriorating dirt levees, many built after the Gold Rush. If a 6.5-magnitude earthquake were to strike -- “almost a certainty by mid-century, though it could happen today,” historian Kevin Starr writes -- 30 levees would break, flooding 16 islands and 3,000 homes.

Salt water would be sucked into the mixing bowl, forcing the shut-off of water to Southern California and San Joaquin Valley farms. Repairs could take five years. Job losses could exceed 30,000. The state’s economy could take a $40-billion hit.

“When it comes to this flood stuff, we’ve become way too casual,” says Lester Snow, state water director. “People don’t see the underinvestment until they see the flooding. But because of Katrina, people actually are paying attention.”

Schwarzenegger certainly is.

On Feb. 24, the governor declared that California’s levee system is in a state of emergency. That allowed him to dip into emergency funds -- about $100 million -- and suspend environmental protections and contracting requirements to repair the 24 weakest levee spots.

Work is expected to be completed before the next flood season.

Also, Schwarzenegger added $3.5 billion to the $2.5 billion he already had proposed for flood control bonds.

He’d originally figured on getting most of the $3.5 billion from Washington. But U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) informed him, essentially, that he was dreaming.

The governor’s decision to go it alone may actually help California obtain more federal funds, Feinstein asserts. “When a state speaks up and says it’s willing to put money where it’s mouth is,” she says, “that signals the state considers it a high priority.”

Many Democrats and reporters speculated that Schwarzenegger acted for cynically political reasons. He declared the emergency late on a Friday, just before his speech to a Republican state convention.

The theory: He was trying to supersede the convention story about a conservative revolt against him. I doubt it. Sounds too silly.

If anything, he was setting himself up for an NBC-TV “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, and a national governors conference that he was attending in Washington.

More likely, Feinstein had a big impact on him.

The governor, the senator and other politicians had toured the levees by helicopter the previous Wednesday. And before they boarded the chopper, Feinstein told Schwarzenegger of a landmark experience she’d had as San Francisco’s mayor.

One day, a staffer lingered after a meeting and told her that in a major earthquake, the overhanging rim around Candlestick Park would tumble down.

“I thought,” she recalls, “I don’t have the money. The stadium is used only a few times a year. But I told myself, ‘Now that I know about it, I have to do something.’ I found the money. It took three years, but we fixed it.”

Jump ahead to October 1989, and the start of a World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s. The Loma Prieta earthquake hit, killing 67 people, but none in Candlestick. The rim held.

“Who would have thought the Giants would be in the World Series and the game would be played at 5 o’clock when the earthquake struck,” Feinstein says. “It could have killed thousands. It was a huge learning lesson for me.”

A lesson heeded -- this time, at least -- by a self-described “action, action, action” governor.

Now, Schwarzenegger and the Legislature should look at those leaky levees as the equivalent of that old, shaky rim around Candlestick Park.

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