This story is from the Bee, on the same day they report on Sacramento City Council action to take two liquor stores through eminent domain because they are claimed to attract and encourage criminal behavior. See that story here: http://www.sacbee.com/content/community_news/sacramento/story/14227154p-15050966c.html
Alcohol and criminal behavior, yes, that computes…but taking a family business that appears to be based on hard work and legal activity to, arguably, stop it, is probably not the best way to go.
Nor does this action considered by the state to seize private property to build levees to protect from flooding. It would seem a much better route to look for protecting from floods at the headwaters, where the three forks of the American River meet, and build a dam there to reduce the amount of water flowing into the Sacramento River helping cause the flood threat.
Even more directly, consider raising Shasta Dam the extra 200 feet it was engineered for, tripling the storage space, and provide long-term flood protection.
Obviously we are talking a lot more money, probably $10 billion for both projects, (and much more complicated politics) but that is a small percentage of the $222 billion the Governor is proposing for state infrastructure needs, and stopping the flood danger to the capital city certainly would seem to qualify as central in that planning.
Major problems require major solutions, and though the politics of levee repair are much easier accomplished than dam building, it is dam building that provides the major solution to flooding on the Sacramento and American Rivers.
Here is an excerpt.
Private land for levees?
Crisis could lead to seizure by state
By Matt Weiser -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, March 8, 2006
The state of California could move to seize private land to repair eroding levees under the authority of a recent emergency declaration, a revelation that worries some observers.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared the levee emergency on Feb. 24, vowing to spend $100 million to repair 24 serious erosion sites on Sacramento Valley levees by Nov. 1, the start of the next flood season.
But the state may go beyond merely rebuilding some eroded areas, said Rod Mayer, acting chief of the division of flood management at the state Department of Water Resources.
In some cases, the state may opt to widen the riverbed by building setback levees, in which the existing levee is abandoned and a new one is built behind it. In other cases, the state may need land for roads and construction.
To get construction started fast, Mayer said, the state is prepared to claim the land now and negotiate a price later.
"It's possible that we could, under the emergency, go through an expedited process for eminent domain where we could take control of the property much more quickly," he said.
Property rights advocates and property owners had mixed reactions to the news Tuesday.
Two of the critical erosion sites are in the Sacramento River West Side Levee District, which stretches 50 miles between Colusa and Knights Landing.
District President Tom Ellis said he is grateful for the governor's attention to flooding problems but wary of any proposal for setback levees, which often take farmland out of production.
"If there's absolutely no other way to address the situation, that's a different story," he said. "But as a wholesale solution, it gets my dander up real quick. We hate to have the government come in and take land from us."
