Flood proposal gets rise from Sutter County

Higher flood insurance rates have taken hold in south Sutter County and could reach the rest of the county by late next year.

The result is a growing rift between county and federal authorities about whether rising premiums and tougher building standards will strangle farm activity.

A forum Thursday between the Board of Supervisors and the Federal Emergency Management Agency became a joust between FEMA and county officials and residents fearful tighter rules and higher premiums would slow growth and choke off farming.

"These get more detrimental to the economy the more restrictive they get," said Supervisor James Gallagher. "It'll be like, 'Well, you won't be able to build anything and your land is worthless, but guess what? You're paying only $1,400 a year instead of $1,500.'"

County water resources chief Dan Peterson and Gregor Blackburn, a regional FEMA floodplain management director, announced the agency will release a draft of the north county's new flood risk map Nov. 15, with a final version due as early as September 2010.

The charts will trigger higher flood insurance premiums for the county until its levees are rebuilt to withstand a once-in-a-century flood, but federal studies for the project are expected to last until at least 2017.

Sutter and Butte county authorities are considering a holding action that would shore up the west Feather River levee first, in hopes of bringing 100-year protection to 90 percent of homes in the river valley.

Builders also will face new restrictions meant to keep as many homes and buildings above a flood's crest as possible.

New and heavily renovated houses will be required to have ground floors at least a foot above a 100-year flood's expected peak level; commercial structures would have to meet that standard or be waterproofed at ground level. Owners can apply for exemptions from the codes for farm-related structures, as well as for designated historical buildings and structures dependent on a riverbank site, such as boathouses.

Even with such exceptions, officials and farmers alike called the new codes draconian, and insisted FEMA overstates the flooding danger in the south county.

"Everyone who lives there knows it's not possible," said Gallagher, a south county native. "And if the information is there to show people that it's not true, then we should be able to show that. Something is wrong with the hydraulic data and how it was established."

"We're at 60 feet (elevation), so we're already 3 feet higher than the bottom of the levee," added Matthew Conant, a Rio Oso landowner and one of two dozen people at the meeting in Yuba City. "This rule would require us to build at 71 feet. If this happens, the Sacramento area has a lot to worry about."

Other officials warned such protests would be futile without appeals to FEMA and Congress, which they called the only likely way to loosen the flood protection rules.

"For those of you on the ground who know what the conditions are, it makes no sense," said County Administrator Larry Combs. "Unless you can change those federal regulations, they're stuck and you're stuck. The federal government isn't terribly malleable with regulations."

At least one south county resident appeared willing to take up the challenge.

"It's obvious FEMA isn't looking out for us," said Eric Nelson of Rio Oso. "If we'd taken 20 percent of what we've spent on flood control on a good lobbying team, we would've solved this problem by now." 

What's Next:

Progress in redrawing the Sutter County flood risk maps:

• Nov. 15: FEMA to release draft maps for the northern two-thirds of Sutter County, raising many flood insurance premiums in the area. Similar maps took effect for the south county Dec. 2.

• September 2010: Earliest possible date for flood charts to take force in the north county, including Yuba City and Live Oak.

Contact Appeal-Democrat re-porter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.