By their nature they are risky, require regular maintenance and are a poor way to provide flood control, except at the minimum levels of 85 or 250 year protection, which respectively, Sacramento now has and New Orleans did have.
Corps: Lots of levees risky
Survey says California has the most problems; critics fire back.
By Deb Kollars and Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writers
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, February 2, 2007
From Washington, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday released a new list of levees across the country that it said could fail from poor maintenance.
The corps' roster showed California with 37 deficient stretches of levees -- more than any other state. And most of the problems were found in rural parts of the Central Valley, near Chico, Marysville, Fairfield and Merced, and around the Delta.
But the list, which officials later said was incomplete, raised more questions than it answered and drew sharp criticism from local levee managers.
"It's almost absurd," said Christopher Lee, president of Reclamation District 556 on Upper Andrus Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The district was criticized for vegetation growth on levees, even though the corps itself is trying to grow plants there, Lee said.
In all, the Army Corps of Engineers gave 122 levees across the nation a deficient rating for maintenance.
None were in Sacramento or West Sacramento.
