During the time away from our blog we have seen, in the most dramatic fashion, why it is crucial to control the flow from the American River Watershed at a much more effective way than we have so far.
The rising waters have pretty much submerged the Parkway and the damage will surely be high.
The dam is currently releasing water at about 32,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) which is about ten times the optimal release for the Parkway, the people, and the salmon.
What we are learning is that the flood protection standard currently used by local public leadership as adequate is not so at all.
The 100 year protection has almost broken at least three times in the last 20 years, and the 200 year protection being proclaimed as the solution, even if twice as good, still can’t give us too much of a sense of security.
We probably need to be looking at a much higher level of protection, more in line with the Dutch, who think in terms of 1,000 years.
Water storage and supply is our focus for this year and we have just begun to study it, but the events of the past ten days, in light of New Orleans, are certainly a robust way to begin our focus, and we can already draw one obvious conclusion; we need to control the water much better than we are.
Here is a related letter to the Bee, from our board president, published today:
Wondering about Auburn dam
The winter storm season is just beginning and water control officials are already warning us about the possibility of flooding. When I think about the current 32,000 cubic feet-per-second-release from Folsom Dam, I wonder if the levees can take the strain. I worry about the lives, homes and jobs that will be lost if the levees fail. I wonder if a few years from now we might wish we could have stored that water to maintain river flows for fish, wildlife and people during a drought.
I wonder about the cost Sacramento County residents are paying to install meters and the spike in our water bills during dry years. I wonder if we could be making clean, cheap electric power with the millions of gallons of water currently rushing into the ocean.
Then I wonder how many floods, droughts and brownouts Northern California must suffer before the people doing the suffering start holding city, county and state leaders responsible for wasting the last 40 years opposing and obstructing the construction of the Auburn dam.
- Michael Rushford, Carmichael
