Dredge the rivers? Flood officials say levee foundations key
Backers of a $250 million levee overhaul are urging Sutter County and Butte County residents to accept yearly payments toward the project to safeguard their lives and property. But supporters also are facing resistance from a few critics who insist renewed river dredging should accompany levee work — or even replace it.
The Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency in April green-lighted a vote on raising $72.5 million to strengthen 44 miles of Feather River flood walls, from the Thermalito Afterbay south to the Sutter Bypass. Backers have called the plan the two counties' best hope to head off soaring insurance rates and state building restrictions — and avoiding a repeat of the 1955 flood in which 38 people died in the Yuba City area.
Even before ballots reached mailboxes, however, skeptical voices emerged. At the flood control agency's April meeting to launch the 45-day mail-in vote, several people in the audience urged members to instead attack the problem by deepening the river channel.
Such calls have largely fallen on deaf ears with county and flood control agencies, who call the levees' foundations — not the depth of the Feather — the main point of weakness.
"Many folks believe if you remove the vegetation, remove the sediment, you don't need anything else," said Ric Reinhardt, principal engineer for MBK Engineers in Sacramento. "But there are serious problems in the levees that regardless of changes in the water volume, you still have underseepage and erosion issues."
No organized opposition to the levee assessment has emerged to counter the Sutter Butte Citizens for Flood Safety, the campaign committee rallying support for the plan. State law bars the flood agency from seeking "yes" votes, though it is allowed to give factual information about the project.
A rare public voice against the levee funding has been Trumon Cooper, a retired Mid-Valley developer and contractor. For five years, the 92-year-old Sutter County resident has almost single-handedly pushed renewed river excavation through letters to newspapers and lawmakers, including veteran U.S. Rep. Wally Herger, R-Chico.
"I will vote against the assessment because I don't believe it's the way to remedy the problem," said Cooper, who moved to the Mid-Valley from Los Angeles two years before the Christmas Eve flood in 1955. "It's only a Band-Aid; it's necessary to keep up the levees, but that's only part of the protection we need.
"I don't pretend to be an authority on flood control, but I am a realist. There will never be long-term protection unless the Feather is dredged."
But demands for dredging seek to push along a process the Feather itself is already performing, according to Joe Countryman, president of MBK.
Years of the river's self-scouring have left some irrigation pumps high and dry from falling water levels, and parts of the river channel south of Yuba City have eroded to the bedrock, said Countryman, a former regional chief designer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In Marysville, the channel level is about 20 feet lower than it was in 1884, when a federal judge outlawed the hydraulic gold mining — the use of long sluices and hoses to wash the soil away from buried gold veins — that had dumped huge quantities of sediment into North State rivers and buried farmland downstream.
Engineers also warned further lowering the river bed — whether by human or natural causes — threatens the stability of the banks and levees, by increasing water volume and speeding up the scouring of already fragile levee beds.
"If the water were to cut through the rock ledge and reach the soft material below, it could start moving side-to-side again and erode the banks, potentially undermining the levees," Countryman said last week. "On the west bank, the levee runs closer to the river, so it could be undercut."
With a little more than three weeks for property owners to weigh in on paying for levee fixes, a member of the pro-assessment committee was confident in the plan's success among voters.
"Yes, there have been phone calls and a couple of letters to the editor, but overall the majority of folks contacting us have had very little to say about dredging," said Barbara LeVake, a board member of Levee District No. 1. "... People are more concerned about the cost of flood insurance that'll be thousands a year, and the decrease in value of their homes and businesses once the new FEMA (flood-risk) maps come out."
LEVEE PLANS AT A GLANCE
WHAT: Property owners in Sutter and Butte counties are voting whether to approve property assessments to support improvements levees on the Feather River's western bank.
SCOPE: The project would shore up 44 miles of flood walls from the Sutter Bypass to the Thermalito Afterbay, with construction scheduled for 2012-14.
WHY: The Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency says shoring up the Feather's western levees will guard north Yuba City against the peak flood forecast every 200 years and provide 100-year protection levels in south Sutter County.
Upgrades are meant to keep or remove the two counties out of federal flood-risk zones, which boost the cost of flood insurance and require policies for all homes with federal mortgages. Increased protection also would help spare the region from state building curbs in floodplains from 2015 onward.
COST: $72.5 million over 30 years to cover the local portion of the project's estimated $250 million cost.
WHEN: The flood control agency mailed ballots in May, and voters have until June 30 to return the ballots. The final chance to cast votes will be at a public forum on the levee project, at 6 p.m. June 30 at Veterans Memorial Hall, 1425 Veterans Memorial Circle in Yuba City.
MORE INFORMATION: 870-4425 or www.sutterbutteflood.org
