The city gave permission to develop Natomas and now the levees appear to not meet the minimal requirement of 100 years, but the developers have already built substantially in the area and have approval to build more.
The big oops continues.
Elevated homes opposed
Natomas builders fear prospect of tough flood rules.
By Mary Lynne Vellinga - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Now that it plans to designate Natomas a "special flood hazard area," the federal government could force developers to elevate new houses more than 20 feet -- a de facto building moratorium in the fast-growing area.
But given the history of flood protection politics in Sacramento, such a prohibitively expensive requirement likely never would be enforced, said local experts in the arcane language of flood zones and FEMA.
Despite Sacramento's long-standing status as one of the nation's riskiest floodplains, the federal government -- sometimes over the objections of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- always has found a way to let the growth keep going.
After heavy rains in 1986 caused levees in Natomas and other Sacramento neighborhoods to spring leaks, then- U.S. Reps. Vic Fazio and Robert Matsui pushed through legislation that prevented FEMA from slapping most of the city with building restrictions. The bill also gave the city a four-year reprieve from higher flood insurance rates.
The tradeoff: Sacramento imposed its own moratorium on residential development in Natomas that lasted until 1998, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers certified the levees as being able to withstand a 100-year flood, the type of storm that has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.
But a recent study found that the improved levees are still vulnerable to underseepage. This finding led the corps to conclude the earthen bulwarks no longer meet the minimum 100-year protection standard.
