The suffering from flooding would affect the region and it is appropriate that the region be involved in flood protection, and it is most appropriate that the business community, through the Sacramento Metro Chamber provides needed leadership around this issue.
Any work to provide flood protection needs to center around optimal flood protection, and that can only be provided by the Auburn Dam, a realization slowly dawning on everyone involved as all of the information becomes available and analyzed.
An excerpt.
Levees need regional effort, chamber told
Flood effects on counties would differ, but coordination is a must, water official says.
By Deb Kollars -- Bee Staff Writer Published 12:01 am PDT Saturday, July 22, 2006
Some river levees are getting fixed this summer, but Sacramento remains the nation's most flood-vulnerable large city and needs the support of the entire six-county region to deal with it, a top state water official told members of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce on Friday.
As he spoke, Lester Snow, director of California's Department of Water Resources, showed the audience a large projected image of homes under water with a helicopter hovering in the foreground.
"This is a scene from Katrina," Snow said, referring to the hurricane that caused widespread flooding along the Gulf Coast late last summer. "We can have this in our community if we don't take action. … We've got a higher risk than New Orleans."
Snow addressed more than 320 business and government leaders attending the chamber's annual "State of the Counties" forum at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento on L Street. The chamber has made flood protection its top public policy priority this year, and devoted Friday's lunch and forum to the topic.
Snow told the group that a 200-year flood -- a dangerous event with a 1-in-200 chance of happening in any given year -- could create an estimated $28 billion calamity for the region. Many communities in Sacramento and the Central Valley do not have protection from even a 100-year event, he said.
It is critical, Snow said, that a proposed $4.15 billion bond measure for levee repairs be passed by California voters in November.
Frank Washington, chair of the chamber's board of directors, said that even though 29 severe erosion sites on Central Valley levees are being repaired this summer and fall, much more work needs to be done to protect the region, including making improvements at Folsom Dam and creating more storage upstream on the American River via a new dam near Auburn. He also emphasized the need for land use decisions that take flood risks into account.
"Our greatest challenges still lie ahead," Washington said. "We cannot hide our heads in a levee."
