Now that the 200 year protection plan appears to be in place and work can begin, let’s hope our public leadership is working on 500 year protection.
House panel OKs revised Folsom Dam project
By David Whitney - Bee Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, March 16, 2007
A key congressional panel approved a $683 million revision to flood-control plans around Folsom Dam on Thursday, agreeing without debate to changes that will double Sacramento's flood protection much faster and more cheaply.
"Everybody understands how important flood protection is to Sacramento," said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, after the unanimous voice vote by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The committee, working on the 2008 Water Resources Development Act, included a provision that formally scraps the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to enlarge existing gates on the face of the dam and instead build the outlets into a new spillway to be constructed in the levee just to the south.
The spillway was in the planning stage by the Bureau of Reclamation to improve the dam's safety. When the cost of the corps' project turned out to be several times more than anticipated, the two agencies re-engineered the spillway project so that it could serve both dam safety and flood-control needs.
"This is an important milestone," said Stein Buer, executive director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency. "This is going to save a lot of money and will get 200-year flood protection much more quickly."
