Boring marks start of levee strengthening efforts

The road to a strengthened levee system in Sutter and Butte counties has begun near Gridley.

Test soil drillings Wednesday on the west bank of the Feather River marked the beginning of a $250 million campaign to overhaul 44 miles of flood walls protecting Yuba City, Live Oak and southern Butte County. The project voters approved in June is expected to last four years and protect most residents from the peak high-water level, staving off insurance-fee hikes and a threatened state curb on development.

Samples from existing levees at various depths will be tested for soil composition, stability and water seepage to help decide what remedies different flood walls require, according to Derek Morley, a geotechnical engineer and consultant to HDR Inc., an engineering firm advising the SBFCA.

Borings today south of Morse Road near Live Oak and Friday off Larkin Road outside Gridley will help the flood control agency build on data previously gathered by the state Department of Water Resources from other levee sections.

"This work is just to fill in the gaps in our knowledge," Morley said after the SBFCA board meeting in Yuba City.

Levee analysis will help the flood control agency reach its first target, a so-called "30 percent design" scheduled for release in April to show the outlines of the project. Construction is expected to last from 2012 to 2014 on a stretch of levees from the Thermalito Afterbay south to the Sutter Bypass.

Later Wednesday, the flood control board delayed for another month the creation of an advisory committee to pass on landholders' concerns to the agency.

While much of the board's discussion about the committee has focused on representing all regions and their major stakeholders, a tax activist asked for the panel to include a person with banking and financial experience, to help keep tabs on the $72.5 million of property assessments the SBFCA plans to raise over 33 years. State bonds will cover the remaining costs.

"Ignorance can be dangerous in that area; I don't care with county you're from — experience is experience," said Elaine Miles, treasurer of the Sutter County Taxpayers Association.

"I don't ever want to see headlines talking about us the way they talk about Bell," she added, referring to the Los Angeles suburb rocked by financial scandal in July.

Fortified levees are expected to guard areas north of Yuba City against 200-year peak river levels, and areas to the south against a 100-year flood event. The improvements are meant to lift federal flood-hazard designations that raised insurance premiums in south Sutter County two years ago and are scheduled to cause similar hikes to the north.