Actually if Sacramento had it to do over again they would have asked that Shasta Dam be completed as originally engineered—200 feet higher and tripling the water storage—reducing substantially the need for massive levees in Natomas, as noted here http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11527399p-12429402c.html
Editorial: Flood agency makes the right call for Natomas
With thousands of homes in floodplain, massive levee improvements are essential
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 1, 2007
If Sacramento had to do it over again, Natomas would be different. A safer Natomas would not have 70,000 people in a basin that could flood 20 feet deep. A smarter Natomas, if it had to be heavily developed, would now be protected by levees that were hundreds of feet wide and less prone to underseepage. Such levees would be set back from the river, and they would not have houses built on top and beside them.
But decades of decisions by local and state agencies, including the state Reclamation Board, have left us with the Natomas we have now.
This year, local leaders learned that the basin's levees – including the one along the Garden Highway that is dotted with homes – fail to meet minimal federal flood control standards. Ever since, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency has moved quickly to protect lives and property.
On Thursday, the SAFCA board made the right decision by endorsing a plan that will bulwark the most vulnerable northern stretches of Natomas levees next year. It then plans to phase in other work by 2010 to bring the entire basin up to 200-year flood protection.
