The cure for flooding water is to stop it, most effectively through dam technology, but there is still a curious taboo at play in seeing that as a viable cure by many involved in the local discussion.
Hopefully, it is a taboo that will soon be lifted, as the long-range discussion and planning needed to see optimal solutions for our severe flooding problems become reality, need to happen in an atmosphere of creative collegiality, where all of the options for a cure are on the table and openly debated.
Here is an excerpt.Editorial: Flood Band-Aids
Triage for levees not enough; cures needed
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The decrepit condition of California's flood control system - and the state's lack of a way to ensure homes aren't built in the wrong places - is now on full display in the San Joaquin River watershed.
Melting snow and a series of spring storms are threatening to overtop levees from Firebaugh down to the Delta. For many communities, the only thing that stands between them and total immersion are a few sandbags and some plastic sheeting. (As of this writing, no San Joaquin levees had broken, but that could change by the time this paper lands on your doorstep.)
As the Department of Water Resources has demonstrated, state employees can react quickly, and work long hours over a weekend, when the water is at trouble's door. DWR is now spending millions of dollars it had saved for summer levee repairs so it can sandbag the most vulnerable sections of the San Joaquin. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Monday.
It may not be enough. The San Joaquin does not have a major flood control bypass - such as the Yolo bypass near Sacramento - and its levees and reservoirs are designed to handle normal snow melt, not a wave of wet storms.
This is not news. Following the 1997 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a series of recommendations for the San Joaquin, including new bypasses, channels and set-back levees. Farm groups opposed these proposals, partly because the bypasses would inundate some of their existing agricultural land.
The result - as is often the case in flood control - is an impasse. No one wins and everyone loses.
