In this story from today’s Bee, we are reminded of how one person’s “flood control device” is another’s home; also an issue along the American River Parkway, where the river is described as the “floodway” and part of the “flood conveyance system” that transports water, running high and fast, from the storm-laden American River, like now, destroying the integrity of the Parkway in the process, again, like now.
The Parkway, like the Stewart tract described in this article, is someone’s home, and the natural heart of a community.
Here is an excerpt.
Other view: Stewart Tract isn't a flood control device
By Susan Dell'Osso -- Special To The Bee Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 18, 2006
John Cain's logic regarding breaching levees on the Stewart Tract to relieve flood pressure is flawed. I am the project director of River Islands Development and we own the Stewart Tract. I must correct some of the comments in Cain's piece, "Breach the levees and save the day" (commentary, April 11), which suggested that the Stewart Tract be flooded to relieve downstream pressures.
River Islands has spent millions of dollars modeling the hydrology in the region. Before a decision is made to flood an island, we need to consider the impacts downstream. Clifton Court Forebay, where pumping stations are located, is just downstream from the Stewart Tract, a Delta island. If that area were to receive floodwaters from the San Joaquin River, the drinking water of millions of Southern Californians would be at risk.
Stewart Tract is vital to California's road and communications networks. Three major freeways come together there, more than 130,000 cars use this connection every day and a major PG&E transmission line and several fiber optic lines cross the site. Two railroads also cross the Stewart Tract. They carry the Altamont commuter express train and the bulk of the freight between the ports of Stockton and Oakland. To flood the area and lose these vital connections would threaten commerce in the region.
When considering levee breaks, remember what happened during the 1997 floods, when there were more than a dozen levee breaks upstream of the Stewart Tract. Some of these happened during the peak water flows and had a beneficial impact by lowering the overall river elevation in the area. While the Stewart Tract did flood in 1997, our levee broke after the peak of the flood and did not reduce the peak elevation on levees downstream from us.
It is actually because of the proposed River Islands development that levee and other improvements can be carried out now without using public funds. For years the state and the Army Corps of Engineers have talked about improving the flood bypass next to the Stewart Tract so that an existing bottleneck could be widened to relieve pressure on the San Joaquin River adjacent to urban areas. There has been no public money allocated to solve this problem to date. River Islands is willing to spend $100 million in private funds to improve this system.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Government Prepared for Disasters?
In the Weintraub column from today’s Bee, he looks at the continued vulnerability, against all prudent thought, still existing in the Bay Area around earthquakes, after having suffered one of the world’s major ones a mere 100 years ago this year.
Some things ring eternal, and counting on luck is so in California
Here is an excerpt.
Daniel Weintraub: 100 years later, Bay Area more vulnerable than ever
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The last time a big earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, Charles Kircher was trapped in an elevator between floors of an office building in Mountain View.
Kircher, who studies earthquakes for a living, knows that when the next big one hits, he - and the rest of us - will be lucky to get off so easily.
Kircher, a civil engineer based in Palo Alto, is the author of a comprehensive study that looks at the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 - which struck 100 years ago today - and asks what would happen if a similar quake struck in the same place in 2006.
The short answer is that the disaster could be the human and economic equivalent of a couple of Hurricane Katrinas. The quake could kill thousands, seriously damage tens of thousands of buildings and leave nearly a half-million people homeless. The economic devastation would last for years, if not decades.
"We're talking about a large amount of damage and a large amount of loss," Kircher says.
To estimate the effect of another huge quake, Kircher melded two approaches. One was to go back and look at actual reports of damage in the 1906 quake and estimates of the kind of shaking that must have caused it. The second was to rely on models of shaking that form the heart of our current seismic safety building codes.
He then wedded that information with the latest databases showing where people live, work and travel around Northern California, what kind of buildings we have and how well they are engineered to withstand the kind of shaking that such an earthquake would bring. The result is the most up-to-date scenario of the potential consequences of a repeat of the disaster that destroyed San Francisco 100 years ago.
To put it in context, consider that the 1906 quake came at a time when about 400,000 people lived in San Francisco and only about 1 million people inhabited the entire 19-county region that felt the quake. Today, the city's population has doubled, and 10 million people live in the region. The value of the buildings in the area is estimated at $1 trillion.
Despite vast improvements in technology and stricter building codes, a similar, magnitude 7.9 quake today would be devastating. Among Kircher's conclusions:
* Between 800 and 3,400 people would die in building collapses alone, with the number depending on whether the earthquake hit at night or during the day. Many more could die in fires that start after the shaking stops.
* Between 80,000 and 120,000 residential buildings would suffer serious damage, forcing 250,000 households to evacuate and leaving at least 400,000 people homeless.
* Between 7,000 and 10,000 commercial buildings would suffer major damage, including 40 percent of all commercial buildings in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
* Most of the Bay Area's highway bridges would suffer damage to their approaches and would likely be closed for at least several days. The Bay Bridge, which was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and is now being replaced, would be damaged and likely closed for weeks. The tube that carries Bay Area Rapid Transit trains under the bay would suffer extensive damage and probably be closed for at least two years, disrupting service to more than 150,000 passenger trips daily.
Some things ring eternal, and counting on luck is so in California
Here is an excerpt.
Daniel Weintraub: 100 years later, Bay Area more vulnerable than ever
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The last time a big earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, Charles Kircher was trapped in an elevator between floors of an office building in Mountain View.
Kircher, who studies earthquakes for a living, knows that when the next big one hits, he - and the rest of us - will be lucky to get off so easily.
Kircher, a civil engineer based in Palo Alto, is the author of a comprehensive study that looks at the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 - which struck 100 years ago today - and asks what would happen if a similar quake struck in the same place in 2006.
The short answer is that the disaster could be the human and economic equivalent of a couple of Hurricane Katrinas. The quake could kill thousands, seriously damage tens of thousands of buildings and leave nearly a half-million people homeless. The economic devastation would last for years, if not decades.
"We're talking about a large amount of damage and a large amount of loss," Kircher says.
To estimate the effect of another huge quake, Kircher melded two approaches. One was to go back and look at actual reports of damage in the 1906 quake and estimates of the kind of shaking that must have caused it. The second was to rely on models of shaking that form the heart of our current seismic safety building codes.
He then wedded that information with the latest databases showing where people live, work and travel around Northern California, what kind of buildings we have and how well they are engineered to withstand the kind of shaking that such an earthquake would bring. The result is the most up-to-date scenario of the potential consequences of a repeat of the disaster that destroyed San Francisco 100 years ago.
To put it in context, consider that the 1906 quake came at a time when about 400,000 people lived in San Francisco and only about 1 million people inhabited the entire 19-county region that felt the quake. Today, the city's population has doubled, and 10 million people live in the region. The value of the buildings in the area is estimated at $1 trillion.
Despite vast improvements in technology and stricter building codes, a similar, magnitude 7.9 quake today would be devastating. Among Kircher's conclusions:
* Between 800 and 3,400 people would die in building collapses alone, with the number depending on whether the earthquake hit at night or during the day. Many more could die in fires that start after the shaking stops.
* Between 80,000 and 120,000 residential buildings would suffer serious damage, forcing 250,000 households to evacuate and leaving at least 400,000 people homeless.
* Between 7,000 and 10,000 commercial buildings would suffer major damage, including 40 percent of all commercial buildings in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
* Most of the Bay Area's highway bridges would suffer damage to their approaches and would likely be closed for at least several days. The Bay Bridge, which was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and is now being replaced, would be damaged and likely closed for weeks. The tube that carries Bay Area Rapid Transit trains under the bay would suffer extensive damage and probably be closed for at least two years, disrupting service to more than 150,000 passenger trips daily.
Government Prepared for Flooding?
In this article from today’s Bee we see, once again, how little prepared government is for the inevitable everyone agrees will happen at some point, and as so tragically did, presented for all eyes to see in New Orleans last year.
This is not necessarily a terminal characteristic of human beings, as another post from today also looks at, but one that is apparently built in as we continually hope that our luck holds, so we continue to not do the kind of prudent disaster preparation that past events would indicate is proper.
It is also very Californian, as our state was built on luck, the second chance, the sudden change from poverty to riches, and we have generally thrived from that attitude
We’ll continue to keep our fingers crossed.
Here is an excerpt.
No flood umbrella for state agencies
Key offices ready to evacuate, but plans aren't coordinated.
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The way Tony Beard Jr. sees it, all he really needs are pens, yellow legal pads and people.
California's legislators drafted laws with pen and paper for generations, and they could do it again if they had to in the event of a downtown flood, said Beard, who, as the Senate's chief sergeant-at-arms, helps brace lawmakers for disaster.
In a city so vulnerable to flooding, Beard likes to take a dual-barreled approach: Plan to provide everything lawmakers need, but be ready to get by with the bare essentials.
From inside the state's domed Capitol, gleaming atop a gentle slope amid palms and camellias, to a boxy state lottery warehouse on a dead-end road down by the American River, state government officials are including the possibility of a flooded downtown in their disaster plans.
If levees lining the Sacramento and American rivers give way, water would slosh into central Sacramento, displacing people who issue the state's paychecks, prosecute its worst criminals and manage its highways.
They'd have anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on which levee breaks, to grab what's most precious and regroup at alternative sites.
The biggest and most crucial state agencies say they're ready, and could forge on with minor delays in public services or with no disruption at all.
Yet no broad oversight exists for thoroughness or timeliness of any aspect of disaster plans, except for data processing. There is no advance coordination to ensure state agencies don't rely too much on the same backup resources.
"I don't think you're necessarily going to have competition for assets or resources," said Eric Lamoureux, top spokesman for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. "Each department is expected to make its own arrangements for its needs. There's no one agency that's responsible for checking up."
OES so far has limited its role to helping some agencies devise model disaster plans that could be used as examples by others.
But some additional oversight comes from the state Department of Finance, with its special charge to make sure computerized data is stored safely and accessible readily.
Although the department isn't specifically asked to investigate how the 120 disaster plans it reviews annually will dovetail, it would notice a pattern of over-reliance on any one fallback system, said H.D. Palmer, the department's deputy director. So far it hasn't seen that.
Some worry that more should be done upfront.
This is not necessarily a terminal characteristic of human beings, as another post from today also looks at, but one that is apparently built in as we continually hope that our luck holds, so we continue to not do the kind of prudent disaster preparation that past events would indicate is proper.
It is also very Californian, as our state was built on luck, the second chance, the sudden change from poverty to riches, and we have generally thrived from that attitude
We’ll continue to keep our fingers crossed.
Here is an excerpt.
No flood umbrella for state agencies
Key offices ready to evacuate, but plans aren't coordinated.
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The way Tony Beard Jr. sees it, all he really needs are pens, yellow legal pads and people.
California's legislators drafted laws with pen and paper for generations, and they could do it again if they had to in the event of a downtown flood, said Beard, who, as the Senate's chief sergeant-at-arms, helps brace lawmakers for disaster.
In a city so vulnerable to flooding, Beard likes to take a dual-barreled approach: Plan to provide everything lawmakers need, but be ready to get by with the bare essentials.
From inside the state's domed Capitol, gleaming atop a gentle slope amid palms and camellias, to a boxy state lottery warehouse on a dead-end road down by the American River, state government officials are including the possibility of a flooded downtown in their disaster plans.
If levees lining the Sacramento and American rivers give way, water would slosh into central Sacramento, displacing people who issue the state's paychecks, prosecute its worst criminals and manage its highways.
They'd have anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on which levee breaks, to grab what's most precious and regroup at alternative sites.
The biggest and most crucial state agencies say they're ready, and could forge on with minor delays in public services or with no disruption at all.
Yet no broad oversight exists for thoroughness or timeliness of any aspect of disaster plans, except for data processing. There is no advance coordination to ensure state agencies don't rely too much on the same backup resources.
"I don't think you're necessarily going to have competition for assets or resources," said Eric Lamoureux, top spokesman for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. "Each department is expected to make its own arrangements for its needs. There's no one agency that's responsible for checking up."
OES so far has limited its role to helping some agencies devise model disaster plans that could be used as examples by others.
But some additional oversight comes from the state Department of Finance, with its special charge to make sure computerized data is stored safely and accessible readily.
Although the department isn't specifically asked to investigate how the 120 disaster plans it reviews annually will dovetail, it would notice a pattern of over-reliance on any one fallback system, said H.D. Palmer, the department's deputy director. So far it hasn't seen that.
Some worry that more should be done upfront.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Flood Protection Funding
This story from this morning’s Bee, as did yesterday’s post, focuses on the financial aspects of creating flood protection, and it correctly assumes most people are willing to be part of the funding for that protection.
However, the funding for levee strengthening, while a necessary part of an overall structural flood protection strategy, is a negative cash flow process while the funding for the construction of a major new dam on the American River is a positive cash flow one, in that ultimately, some cash flow will be realized from the dam through the sale of water, electricity, and development around the shores of the lake created, as well as increasing it within the development accessible areas of the watershed.
This is, properly, the type of cost-benefit analysis, along with that of the value of 400-500+ year protection offered by a dam, vs the 100-200 offered by levees, that the public discussion should continue to highlight, both as a public service to a public needing sound information to make sound decisions and to deepen the reservoir of public knowledge grounding public good.
Here is an excerpt.
Putting a price on flood protection
By Deb Kollars -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, April 17, 2006
The need for better flood protection is dawning on communities across the region.
So is the price tag.
People living in various flood-prone zones may soon be facing new hits on their household budgets to cover flood control fixes.
Some smaller assessment increases would go for day-to-day maintenance work by local levee districts, while others would cover bigger construction projects designed to increase flood protection.
In the Natomas basin, a property assessment is being mulled that could run in the vicinity of $300 a year per home to cover about $300 million in flood control improvements.
In West Sacramento, leaders are weighing not one but two increases to existing assessments to cover a range of needs, from ongoing maintenance to geotechnical studies to possible construction projects.
People living on both sides of the American River in Sacramento likely will be asked next year to approve a small increase in the $8 to $26 they now pay annually for levee maintenance to cover rising costs...
...The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, which handles big capital improvement projects benefiting the city of Sacramento and parts of Sacramento and Sutter counties, already has three assessments in place.
One covers operations and maintenance, while the other two have been paying for levee and other flood control improvements in both northern and southern areas.
The annual fees on single-family properties vary, depending on building size and proximity to flood control benefits. A property owner in Land Park, for example, pays about $22 a year for the operations assessment and $14 a year for a capital improvement assessment.
A typical homeowner in Natomas was paying about $100 a year when a levee improvement assessment for that area went into effect about 10 years ago; federal reimbursements are bringing that figure down to about $70 a year, said Stein Buer, executive director of the agency, known as SAFCA.
In the past, Sacramento flood control projects have relied on the federal government for authorization and much of the funding.
But for its next big construction step, SAFCA wants to go it alone, then seek some federal reimbursement later.
Working through the federal government can take as many as 20 years to get a project approved and built. The next round of work in Natomas to address deep underseepage is urgent and can't wait that long, Buer said.
"We want to be in construction by next summer," Buer said recently, noting it would take as many as five years for construction to commence if it were a federal project. federal government for help. But local folks will have to chip in, too, said Jeff Foltz, Yuba City's city manager.
However, the funding for levee strengthening, while a necessary part of an overall structural flood protection strategy, is a negative cash flow process while the funding for the construction of a major new dam on the American River is a positive cash flow one, in that ultimately, some cash flow will be realized from the dam through the sale of water, electricity, and development around the shores of the lake created, as well as increasing it within the development accessible areas of the watershed.
This is, properly, the type of cost-benefit analysis, along with that of the value of 400-500+ year protection offered by a dam, vs the 100-200 offered by levees, that the public discussion should continue to highlight, both as a public service to a public needing sound information to make sound decisions and to deepen the reservoir of public knowledge grounding public good.
Here is an excerpt.
Putting a price on flood protection
By Deb Kollars -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, April 17, 2006
The need for better flood protection is dawning on communities across the region.
So is the price tag.
People living in various flood-prone zones may soon be facing new hits on their household budgets to cover flood control fixes.
Some smaller assessment increases would go for day-to-day maintenance work by local levee districts, while others would cover bigger construction projects designed to increase flood protection.
In the Natomas basin, a property assessment is being mulled that could run in the vicinity of $300 a year per home to cover about $300 million in flood control improvements.
In West Sacramento, leaders are weighing not one but two increases to existing assessments to cover a range of needs, from ongoing maintenance to geotechnical studies to possible construction projects.
People living on both sides of the American River in Sacramento likely will be asked next year to approve a small increase in the $8 to $26 they now pay annually for levee maintenance to cover rising costs...
...The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, which handles big capital improvement projects benefiting the city of Sacramento and parts of Sacramento and Sutter counties, already has three assessments in place.
One covers operations and maintenance, while the other two have been paying for levee and other flood control improvements in both northern and southern areas.
The annual fees on single-family properties vary, depending on building size and proximity to flood control benefits. A property owner in Land Park, for example, pays about $22 a year for the operations assessment and $14 a year for a capital improvement assessment.
A typical homeowner in Natomas was paying about $100 a year when a levee improvement assessment for that area went into effect about 10 years ago; federal reimbursements are bringing that figure down to about $70 a year, said Stein Buer, executive director of the agency, known as SAFCA.
In the past, Sacramento flood control projects have relied on the federal government for authorization and much of the funding.
But for its next big construction step, SAFCA wants to go it alone, then seek some federal reimbursement later.
Working through the federal government can take as many as 20 years to get a project approved and built. The next round of work in Natomas to address deep underseepage is urgent and can't wait that long, Buer said.
"We want to be in construction by next summer," Buer said recently, noting it would take as many as five years for construction to commence if it were a federal project. federal government for help. But local folks will have to chip in, too, said Jeff Foltz, Yuba City's city manager.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Auburn Dam: A Solid & Sensible Idea, Part Three
This article from today’s Bee highlights the important financial considerations involved in being able to build a dam on the American River that provides 400+ year flood protection.
To put that protection into context; Sacramento currently has 100 year flood protection, will have 200 year flood protection with the planned levee and Folsom Dam improvements, and, New Orleans had 250 year flood protection right before Katrina hit.
Obviously the optimal strategy is one that carries a 400+ year level of flood protection, and even with the caveats in this story about the size of the agency helping to move that strategy forward, we hope public leadership, and public discussion, continues to focus on optimal solutions while working hard to provide funding for them.
Here is an excerpt.
Dam has a tiny backer
For $5 billion Auburn project, agency's annual budget is $17,855
By Matt Weiser and Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writers Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, April 16, 2006
The American River Authority doesn't have the cash to buy an average new car. Yet this obscure government agency will decide next month whether to sponsor the construction of an Auburn dam, potentially a $5 billion project.
Federal rules require a local sponsor or sponsors to pay 35 percent of a new dam's flood-control costs. For a project the size of an Auburn dam, this share might run to $700 million or more.
That could be a tall order for the American River Authority, a joint-powers agency consisting of San Joaquin, Placer and El Dorado counties, and the water agencies of the latter two counties.
The authority was formed in 1982 expressly to become the dam's local sponsor. But when the project's financial and political challenges proved too great, the authority turned to lobbying for the dam alongside Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, and the private Auburn Dam Council.
Bruce Kranz, the authority's chairman and a Placer County supervisor, said the dam now has a fighting chance. Last year's New Orleans flooding disaster, he said, gives the dam new currency as a flood-control structure to protect Sacramento.
Estimates of how much flood protection the dam would provide vary with the type of project discussed. But an Auburn dam could at minimum quadruple protection for most of Sacramento, providing security from a massive storm with a 1 in 400 chance of occurring in a given year.
"We think the timing is right," Kranz said. "We don't even know what the cost of the project is.
What we're saying is, we are ready to start the process to find out what these numbers are."
In recent years, Sacramento County leaders have expressed concern that efforts to revive the project would divert money and attention from planned improvements to area levees and Folsom Dam without the new dam ever becoming a reality.
Auburn dam was authorized in 1965 as a 2.3 million acre-foot reservoir on the American River adjacent to the city of Auburn.
Earthquake risk and environmental concerns halted the project in 1979.
The authority plans to decide at its May 15 meeting whether to become Auburn dam's local sponsor, and to investigate construction financing that could include issuing revenue bonds.
As a state-recognized joint powers agency, the authority has the legal power to issue bonds.
To put that protection into context; Sacramento currently has 100 year flood protection, will have 200 year flood protection with the planned levee and Folsom Dam improvements, and, New Orleans had 250 year flood protection right before Katrina hit.
Obviously the optimal strategy is one that carries a 400+ year level of flood protection, and even with the caveats in this story about the size of the agency helping to move that strategy forward, we hope public leadership, and public discussion, continues to focus on optimal solutions while working hard to provide funding for them.
Here is an excerpt.
Dam has a tiny backer
For $5 billion Auburn project, agency's annual budget is $17,855
By Matt Weiser and Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writers Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, April 16, 2006
The American River Authority doesn't have the cash to buy an average new car. Yet this obscure government agency will decide next month whether to sponsor the construction of an Auburn dam, potentially a $5 billion project.
Federal rules require a local sponsor or sponsors to pay 35 percent of a new dam's flood-control costs. For a project the size of an Auburn dam, this share might run to $700 million or more.
That could be a tall order for the American River Authority, a joint-powers agency consisting of San Joaquin, Placer and El Dorado counties, and the water agencies of the latter two counties.
The authority was formed in 1982 expressly to become the dam's local sponsor. But when the project's financial and political challenges proved too great, the authority turned to lobbying for the dam alongside Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, and the private Auburn Dam Council.
Bruce Kranz, the authority's chairman and a Placer County supervisor, said the dam now has a fighting chance. Last year's New Orleans flooding disaster, he said, gives the dam new currency as a flood-control structure to protect Sacramento.
Estimates of how much flood protection the dam would provide vary with the type of project discussed. But an Auburn dam could at minimum quadruple protection for most of Sacramento, providing security from a massive storm with a 1 in 400 chance of occurring in a given year.
"We think the timing is right," Kranz said. "We don't even know what the cost of the project is.
What we're saying is, we are ready to start the process to find out what these numbers are."
In recent years, Sacramento County leaders have expressed concern that efforts to revive the project would divert money and attention from planned improvements to area levees and Folsom Dam without the new dam ever becoming a reality.
Auburn dam was authorized in 1965 as a 2.3 million acre-foot reservoir on the American River adjacent to the city of Auburn.
Earthquake risk and environmental concerns halted the project in 1979.
The authority plans to decide at its May 15 meeting whether to become Auburn dam's local sponsor, and to investigate construction financing that could include issuing revenue bonds.
As a state-recognized joint powers agency, the authority has the legal power to issue bonds.
Homeless Camping, A Legal Victory
In this story from Saturday’s Bee it appears the ability to camp in a city’s open space without restriction may have obtained legal standing, and this has impact in Sacramento as the article notes, as these arguments have been used here to drop charges of illegal camping in the Parkway.
While it may be compassionate to the unfortunate individuals and families without a roof over their head, it places a severe handicap on areas, such as the American River Parkway, and the adjacent communities, where illegal camping becomes an issue of public safety, trash accumulation, and habitat destruction.
Here is an excerpt.
Court: L.A. law is unfair to homeless
By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 15, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Because thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles have no shelters to turn to, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city violates their rights by enforcing its broad ban against sitting, lying or sleeping on public streets and sidewalks.
The Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments," bars punishment of "involuntary sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles," said a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The decision, written by Judge Kim Wardlaw of Pasadena, was a rare victory for the homeless against cities that have attempted to eradicate signs of their presence by using various "anti-camping" ordinances.
In the Los Angeles case, unlike some others that cities have won, homeless advocates presented undisputed evidence of a shortage of shelter beds. Los Angeles also has a broader law than other cities. It allows public sitting only on benches or during permitted parades.
Friday's ruling did not strike down the law but required that it be narrowed.
The decision was based on 1960s-vintage U.S. Supreme Court decisions barring punishment of alcoholics and drug addicts on the basis of their addiction.
In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said the high court's decisions were applicable only to crimes of status and not crimes of conduct.
Los Angeles doesn't punish people "simply because they are homeless" but because they sit, lie or sleep on city sidewalks, conduct "that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without," Rymer wrote.
She said "neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit court of appeals has ever held that conduct derivative of a status may not be criminalized."
The 9th Circuit majority, however, found conduct and status inseparable in the Los Angeles case, "given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest."
Joining Wardlaw was Edward Reed Jr., a Nevada U.S. district judge assigned to the case.
The majority opinion repudiated a lower court's 1994 decision in San Francisco that homelessness was not a status protected by the Eighth Amendment.
By ordering an injunction against Los Angeles, the 9th Circuit also went well beyond a 1998 state Court of Appeal decision that permits homeless Californians to beat criminal charges after they're hauled into court by raising a defense of "necessity."
The circuit judges said six homeless plaintiffs who sued are entitled "at a minimum" to a "narrowly tailored injunction" that will permit them to sit, lie down or sleep "at certain times and/or places."
It will be up to a trial judge to set the injunction's terms.
Similar issues have been raised in Sacramento, where local laws make it illegal to sleep, urinate, drink or store one's belongings in public.
While it may be compassionate to the unfortunate individuals and families without a roof over their head, it places a severe handicap on areas, such as the American River Parkway, and the adjacent communities, where illegal camping becomes an issue of public safety, trash accumulation, and habitat destruction.
Here is an excerpt.
Court: L.A. law is unfair to homeless
By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 15, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Because thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles have no shelters to turn to, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city violates their rights by enforcing its broad ban against sitting, lying or sleeping on public streets and sidewalks.
The Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments," bars punishment of "involuntary sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles," said a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The decision, written by Judge Kim Wardlaw of Pasadena, was a rare victory for the homeless against cities that have attempted to eradicate signs of their presence by using various "anti-camping" ordinances.
In the Los Angeles case, unlike some others that cities have won, homeless advocates presented undisputed evidence of a shortage of shelter beds. Los Angeles also has a broader law than other cities. It allows public sitting only on benches or during permitted parades.
Friday's ruling did not strike down the law but required that it be narrowed.
The decision was based on 1960s-vintage U.S. Supreme Court decisions barring punishment of alcoholics and drug addicts on the basis of their addiction.
In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said the high court's decisions were applicable only to crimes of status and not crimes of conduct.
Los Angeles doesn't punish people "simply because they are homeless" but because they sit, lie or sleep on city sidewalks, conduct "that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without," Rymer wrote.
She said "neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit court of appeals has ever held that conduct derivative of a status may not be criminalized."
The 9th Circuit majority, however, found conduct and status inseparable in the Los Angeles case, "given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest."
Joining Wardlaw was Edward Reed Jr., a Nevada U.S. district judge assigned to the case.
The majority opinion repudiated a lower court's 1994 decision in San Francisco that homelessness was not a status protected by the Eighth Amendment.
By ordering an injunction against Los Angeles, the 9th Circuit also went well beyond a 1998 state Court of Appeal decision that permits homeless Californians to beat criminal charges after they're hauled into court by raising a defense of "necessity."
The circuit judges said six homeless plaintiffs who sued are entitled "at a minimum" to a "narrowly tailored injunction" that will permit them to sit, lie down or sleep "at certain times and/or places."
It will be up to a trial judge to set the injunction's terms.
Similar issues have been raised in Sacramento, where local laws make it illegal to sleep, urinate, drink or store one's belongings in public.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Shasta Dam, Tripling its Water Storage
This 2004 story from the Los Angeles Times, though focusing on water shortage, is especially relevant now that the Sacramento River is running high and fast; as it details how Shasta Dam was originally engineered to be 200 feet higher, (and could easily be raised by that height now) tripling its water storage, and virtually stopping flood concerns on the Sacramento.
Here is an excerpt.
"As California looks for new ways to increase water supplies in the face of mounting shortages, this monstrous 602-foot facade holding back the Sacramento River seems destined to grow even taller.
"It's a perfect spot for expansion, although it's not the only site under intense scrutiny in this scramble for new water storage.
"Shasta Dam was designed to be 800 feet tall, so adding concrete to its top presents no significant engineering obstacles.
"This is like adding a room on a house, rather than building a new house," said Michael J. Ryan, the Bureau of Reclamation's Northern California area manager, whose small office overlooks the dam, the lake and, on a clear day, Mount Shasta looming large in the distance.
"But most importantly, the clean, cold water it would add to the state's supply is exactly what water managers are looking for. A taller dam means additional downstream protection against floods, more downstream supply for farms and cities and, because Shasta Lake would be deeper, more cold water to send downriver when the salmon are looking for a place to spawn.
"A recently enacted federal water bill governing the state-federal San Francisco Bay-Delta restoration and water program commonly known as Cal-Fed revs up studies to add as much as 18.5 feet of concrete to the top of the dam. That would boost the size of the lake behind by some 15 percent, or 636,000 acre-feet - enough water for 1.2 million households.
"At an estimated cost of nearly $500 million, the project would be relatively cheap. Under the Bureau of Reclamation's current timetable, construction could be under way in five years and completed in 10.
"All that looks promising for Northern and Central California, where water shortages in a normal year are expected to be 1.4 million acre-feet by 2020 - and three times that in a drought year."
Here is an excerpt.
"As California looks for new ways to increase water supplies in the face of mounting shortages, this monstrous 602-foot facade holding back the Sacramento River seems destined to grow even taller.
"It's a perfect spot for expansion, although it's not the only site under intense scrutiny in this scramble for new water storage.
"Shasta Dam was designed to be 800 feet tall, so adding concrete to its top presents no significant engineering obstacles.
"This is like adding a room on a house, rather than building a new house," said Michael J. Ryan, the Bureau of Reclamation's Northern California area manager, whose small office overlooks the dam, the lake and, on a clear day, Mount Shasta looming large in the distance.
"But most importantly, the clean, cold water it would add to the state's supply is exactly what water managers are looking for. A taller dam means additional downstream protection against floods, more downstream supply for farms and cities and, because Shasta Lake would be deeper, more cold water to send downriver when the salmon are looking for a place to spawn.
"A recently enacted federal water bill governing the state-federal San Francisco Bay-Delta restoration and water program commonly known as Cal-Fed revs up studies to add as much as 18.5 feet of concrete to the top of the dam. That would boost the size of the lake behind by some 15 percent, or 636,000 acre-feet - enough water for 1.2 million households.
"At an estimated cost of nearly $500 million, the project would be relatively cheap. Under the Bureau of Reclamation's current timetable, construction could be under way in five years and completed in 10.
"All that looks promising for Northern and Central California, where water shortages in a normal year are expected to be 1.4 million acre-feet by 2020 - and three times that in a drought year."
Golden State Action Plan, US Chamber
This recently released (April 2006) report from the US Chamber of Commerce, The Golden State Action Plan, had this to say about Water:
Water
Critical investments in water infrastructure simply cannot wait any longer. A U.S. Department of the Interior publication lists the Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Southern California as areas of the West where existing water supplies are or will be inadequate to meet the water demands of people, cities, farms, and the environment even under normal water supply conditions. The report points to five realities underlying the crisis: explosive population growth in arid areas; inadequate existing water supplies; overallocated water supplies; aging water facilities limiting management options; and management by crisis, rather than management to prevent crisis.
In addition, California has hundreds of miles of levees in the Delta, the majority of which are a century old. Many do not meet current standards for safety and flood control. Importantly, a recent court ruling makes clear that the state is responsible for flood damage even if the levees are privately owned. The most recent estimate on repairing the levees put the price at $1 billion, but the price tag will likely be higher.
The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed $35 billion in water infrastructure that will restore levees in delta regions, boosting both flood protection and enhancing the state’s ability to deliver a quality water supply throughout California.
(p. 8-9) (highlighting added)
Water
Critical investments in water infrastructure simply cannot wait any longer. A U.S. Department of the Interior publication lists the Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Southern California as areas of the West where existing water supplies are or will be inadequate to meet the water demands of people, cities, farms, and the environment even under normal water supply conditions. The report points to five realities underlying the crisis: explosive population growth in arid areas; inadequate existing water supplies; overallocated water supplies; aging water facilities limiting management options; and management by crisis, rather than management to prevent crisis.
In addition, California has hundreds of miles of levees in the Delta, the majority of which are a century old. Many do not meet current standards for safety and flood control. Importantly, a recent court ruling makes clear that the state is responsible for flood damage even if the levees are privately owned. The most recent estimate on repairing the levees put the price at $1 billion, but the price tag will likely be higher.
The Schwarzenegger administration has proposed $35 billion in water infrastructure that will restore levees in delta regions, boosting both flood protection and enhancing the state’s ability to deliver a quality water supply throughout California.
(p. 8-9) (highlighting added)
Friday, April 14, 2006
Rancho Cordova Parkway Planning, Part Two
In this article from this week’s edition of the Sacramento News & Review, the discussion between the city of Rancho Cordova and the County about having signatory power over the Parkway Plan currently being updated (fifteen years late by the way, which is part of the back-story here) and, as so often happens, it is the accusatory position applying a somewhat revisionist interpretation of history.
However, the fact remains, of course Rancho Cordova should have signatory power over the Parkway Plan. After all, fully 25% of it is within their city limits.
The County, still quite upset with Rancho Cordova for having the vision to become their own city, (and doing quite well thank you), has been everything but collegial, and the groups taking the County’s side, often quite uncivil to the good ideas Rancho Cordova has been putting forward regarding the Parkway.
Going to their state senator (and a former county supervisor) for help in getting their well-deserved seat at the table is not only the right thing to do, but will result in much better governance for the Parkway.
And, that will benefit all of us.
Here is an excerpt.
River Dance
By RV Scheide
The city of Rancho Cordova's efforts to secure signatory power in the decision-making process governing the American River Parkway has drawn the ire of the organization that helped create the parkway in the first place. At issue is Senate Bill 1776, legislation drafted on behalf of Rancho Cordova by Senator Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks. If approved, the bill would grant Rancho Cordova signatory power in the parkway planning process, a privilege currently enjoyed by the city of Sacramento, Sacramento County and the Legislature.
Members of the Save the American River Association (SARA) are accusing the recently incorporated city of a last-ditch end run designed to circumvent an arduous process that's been two years in the making.
"This has irritated a lot of people because they said they weren't interested initially," said SARA Vice President Warren Truitt. SARA claims that Rancho Cordova was offered signatory power in 2003, after it incorporated. Rancho Cordova City Councilwoman Linda Budge disputes the claim.
"That is completely inaccurate," Budge said. "No one has ever said to us, 'Would you like to be a signatory to this particular plan?'"
"I have to take exception to the people saying the county deliberately excluded Rancho Cordova from this process," said Betsy Weiland, a volunteer coordinator for SARA who serves as an alternate member of Update Citizen's Advisory Committee (UCAC). "That is absolutely not true. They have a representative sitting on the committee." She pointed out that when the update process began in 2003, no one from Rancho Cordova volunteered to be a member of UCAC.
"We wanted to send someone, but no one volunteered from Rancho Cordova," Budge conceded. The 25-member committee is composed of four Sacramento City Council members, five county supervisors and citizens from other communities along the parkway. Members vote on proposed updates to the plan, but aside from the city of Sacramento and the county, they have no signatory power over the plan's implementation.
Budge says one reason Rancho Cordova feels left out of the process is that the committee spent the last two years focusing mostly on the parkway's lower reach, downstream from her city. In December, Rancho Cordova drew up plans for nine separate proposals for its area of the parkway. The proposals were presented to UCAC in February to mixed reaction.
"Ninety percent of what they want to do is compatible [with the parkway's existing usage]; it's the 10 percent that's not compatible that we're concerned with," Truitt said. Some of the proposals, such as building a bicycle bridge across the American River, may be incompatible with existing wildlife use. "We need to see more of everything they're proposing. They want signatory power over something that's very vague at this point."
However, the fact remains, of course Rancho Cordova should have signatory power over the Parkway Plan. After all, fully 25% of it is within their city limits.
The County, still quite upset with Rancho Cordova for having the vision to become their own city, (and doing quite well thank you), has been everything but collegial, and the groups taking the County’s side, often quite uncivil to the good ideas Rancho Cordova has been putting forward regarding the Parkway.
Going to their state senator (and a former county supervisor) for help in getting their well-deserved seat at the table is not only the right thing to do, but will result in much better governance for the Parkway.
And, that will benefit all of us.
Here is an excerpt.
River Dance
By RV Scheide
The city of Rancho Cordova's efforts to secure signatory power in the decision-making process governing the American River Parkway has drawn the ire of the organization that helped create the parkway in the first place. At issue is Senate Bill 1776, legislation drafted on behalf of Rancho Cordova by Senator Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks. If approved, the bill would grant Rancho Cordova signatory power in the parkway planning process, a privilege currently enjoyed by the city of Sacramento, Sacramento County and the Legislature.
Members of the Save the American River Association (SARA) are accusing the recently incorporated city of a last-ditch end run designed to circumvent an arduous process that's been two years in the making.
"This has irritated a lot of people because they said they weren't interested initially," said SARA Vice President Warren Truitt. SARA claims that Rancho Cordova was offered signatory power in 2003, after it incorporated. Rancho Cordova City Councilwoman Linda Budge disputes the claim.
"That is completely inaccurate," Budge said. "No one has ever said to us, 'Would you like to be a signatory to this particular plan?'"
"I have to take exception to the people saying the county deliberately excluded Rancho Cordova from this process," said Betsy Weiland, a volunteer coordinator for SARA who serves as an alternate member of Update Citizen's Advisory Committee (UCAC). "That is absolutely not true. They have a representative sitting on the committee." She pointed out that when the update process began in 2003, no one from Rancho Cordova volunteered to be a member of UCAC.
"We wanted to send someone, but no one volunteered from Rancho Cordova," Budge conceded. The 25-member committee is composed of four Sacramento City Council members, five county supervisors and citizens from other communities along the parkway. Members vote on proposed updates to the plan, but aside from the city of Sacramento and the county, they have no signatory power over the plan's implementation.
Budge says one reason Rancho Cordova feels left out of the process is that the committee spent the last two years focusing mostly on the parkway's lower reach, downstream from her city. In December, Rancho Cordova drew up plans for nine separate proposals for its area of the parkway. The proposals were presented to UCAC in February to mixed reaction.
"Ninety percent of what they want to do is compatible [with the parkway's existing usage]; it's the 10 percent that's not compatible that we're concerned with," Truitt said. Some of the proposals, such as building a bicycle bridge across the American River, may be incompatible with existing wildlife use. "We need to see more of everything they're proposing. They want signatory power over something that's very vague at this point."
Exaggerating to Raise Funds, Shape Policy, Part Two
Another very interesting post on the subject of the previous post is from from the April 12 web-posting by Richard John Neuhaus at First Things, commenting on a George Will column.
Here is an excerpt
April 12, 2006
Richard John Neuhaus writes:
Moving to less controversial topics, George Will had a thoughtful column Sunday before last on new efforts to gin up the panic about global warming. He notes that Time magazine has this big issue declaring, “Be worried. Be very worried.” Will is amused by the piquant presumption that the nation will panic on command from Time.
Mr. Will notes that neither the science nor the economics surrounding the global warming debate is very convincing. “That is one reason why the Clinton administration never submitted the Kyoto accord on global warming for Senate ratification. In 1997 the Senate voted 95 to 0 that the accord would disproportionately burden America while being too permissive toward major polluters that are America’s trade competitors.”
It was not very long ago that we were told about the impending catastrophe of global cooling. Citing various alleged authorities, Mr. Will writes:
While worrying about Montana’s receding glaciers, Prof. Schweitzer, who is 50, should also worry about the fact that when he was 20 he was told to be worried, very worried, about global cooling. Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.” Science Digest (February 1973) reported that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age.” The Christian Science Monitor (”Warning: Earth’s Climate is Changing Faster Than Even Experts Expect,” Aug. 27, 1974) reported that glaciers “have begun to advance,” “growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter” and “the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool.” Newsweek agreed (”The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975) that meteorologists “are almost unanimous” that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said “may mark the return to another ice age.” The Times (May 21, 1975) also said “a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.”
Following the money, which is usually a wise thing to do, Mr. Will opines that today’s global warming panic is driven in large part by the interests of coal and oil interests that want massive federal funding for new technologies that will putatively reduce the emissions that are putatively guilty of hotting up the world. Others say it is driven also by a strategy to prepare the public for a major reinvestment in nuclear power. I don’t know, but it sounds plausible.
Geologist Bob Carter, writing on Monday in the UK’s Telegraph, has further reflections on the basis of his work as an expert on paleoclimate:
The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.
Professor Carter notes that more recent studies suggest that the gentle warming phase has already ended, and that since 1998 temperatures have leveled off, if they have not dropped just slightly.
As I say, I am no expert on the science of these matters. But I have over the years paid more than a little attention to the ways in which science, religion, and everything else is exploited for dubious purposes by presumed experts. So whom do you trust? Among those I trust is Thomas Derr of Smith College. He is a Christian ethicist who has for decades assiduously followed the arguments and counterarguments and how they are used to various political and ideological ends. His article “Strange Science” was published in the November 2004 issue of FIRST THINGS. Herewith his conclusion:
It is clear, then, given the deep roots of the scare, that it is likely to be pretty durable. It has the added advantage of not being readily falsifiable in our lifetimes; only future humans, who will have the perspective of centuries, will know for certain whether the current warming trend is abnormal. In the meantime, the sanest course for us would be to gain what limited perspective we can (remembering the global cooling alarm of a generation ago) and to proceed cautiously. We are going through a scare with many causes, and we need to step back from it, take a long second look at the scientific evidence, and not do anything rash. Though the alarmists claim otherwise, the science concerning global warming is certainly not settled. It is probable that the case for anthropogenic warming will not hold up, and that the earth is behaving as it has for millennia, with natural climate swings that have little to do with human activity.
Here is an excerpt
April 12, 2006
Richard John Neuhaus writes:
Moving to less controversial topics, George Will had a thoughtful column Sunday before last on new efforts to gin up the panic about global warming. He notes that Time magazine has this big issue declaring, “Be worried. Be very worried.” Will is amused by the piquant presumption that the nation will panic on command from Time.
Mr. Will notes that neither the science nor the economics surrounding the global warming debate is very convincing. “That is one reason why the Clinton administration never submitted the Kyoto accord on global warming for Senate ratification. In 1997 the Senate voted 95 to 0 that the accord would disproportionately burden America while being too permissive toward major polluters that are America’s trade competitors.”
It was not very long ago that we were told about the impending catastrophe of global cooling. Citing various alleged authorities, Mr. Will writes:
While worrying about Montana’s receding glaciers, Prof. Schweitzer, who is 50, should also worry about the fact that when he was 20 he was told to be worried, very worried, about global cooling. Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.” Science Digest (February 1973) reported that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age.” The Christian Science Monitor (”Warning: Earth’s Climate is Changing Faster Than Even Experts Expect,” Aug. 27, 1974) reported that glaciers “have begun to advance,” “growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter” and “the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool.” Newsweek agreed (”The Cooling World,” April 28, 1975) that meteorologists “are almost unanimous” that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times (Sept. 14, 1975) said “may mark the return to another ice age.” The Times (May 21, 1975) also said “a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.”
Following the money, which is usually a wise thing to do, Mr. Will opines that today’s global warming panic is driven in large part by the interests of coal and oil interests that want massive federal funding for new technologies that will putatively reduce the emissions that are putatively guilty of hotting up the world. Others say it is driven also by a strategy to prepare the public for a major reinvestment in nuclear power. I don’t know, but it sounds plausible.
Geologist Bob Carter, writing on Monday in the UK’s Telegraph, has further reflections on the basis of his work as an expert on paleoclimate:
The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.
Professor Carter notes that more recent studies suggest that the gentle warming phase has already ended, and that since 1998 temperatures have leveled off, if they have not dropped just slightly.
As I say, I am no expert on the science of these matters. But I have over the years paid more than a little attention to the ways in which science, religion, and everything else is exploited for dubious purposes by presumed experts. So whom do you trust? Among those I trust is Thomas Derr of Smith College. He is a Christian ethicist who has for decades assiduously followed the arguments and counterarguments and how they are used to various political and ideological ends. His article “Strange Science” was published in the November 2004 issue of FIRST THINGS. Herewith his conclusion:
It is clear, then, given the deep roots of the scare, that it is likely to be pretty durable. It has the added advantage of not being readily falsifiable in our lifetimes; only future humans, who will have the perspective of centuries, will know for certain whether the current warming trend is abnormal. In the meantime, the sanest course for us would be to gain what limited perspective we can (remembering the global cooling alarm of a generation ago) and to proceed cautiously. We are going through a scare with many causes, and we need to step back from it, take a long second look at the scientific evidence, and not do anything rash. Though the alarmists claim otherwise, the science concerning global warming is certainly not settled. It is probable that the case for anthropogenic warming will not hold up, and that the earth is behaving as it has for millennia, with natural climate swings that have little to do with human activity.
Exaggerating to Raise Funds, Shape Policy
In this article from Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, the issue of creating alarm to raise funds, (or of downplaying alarm and losing them) and shape policy is fleshed out through the arguments around global warming.
Even prominent public budget academics such as Professor Emeritus Irene Rubin, understand the practical use of exaggerating catastrophe to raise funds, and writes in her book, The Politics of Public Budgeting (5th Ed) (2006) that “The probability of catastrophic events may have to be exaggerated to make a powerful case [for a budget item]. (p. 148)
One continues to hope however, for truth in advertising.
Here is an excerpt.
Free Inquiry
Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
BY RICHARD LINDZEN Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m.
There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.
Even prominent public budget academics such as Professor Emeritus Irene Rubin, understand the practical use of exaggerating catastrophe to raise funds, and writes in her book, The Politics of Public Budgeting (5th Ed) (2006) that “The probability of catastrophic events may have to be exaggerated to make a powerful case [for a budget item]. (p. 148)
One continues to hope however, for truth in advertising.
Here is an excerpt.
Free Inquiry
Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
BY RICHARD LINDZEN Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m.
There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Auburn Dam: A Solid & Sensible Idea, Part Two
In this story from today’s Bee we see that the legal and political structuring needed to ensure Sacramento is protected from flooding as only a dam can do, is coming together; an effort we heartily applaud.
While being very satisfied with the location and current type of dam being considered at the Auburn Dam site, we still have concerns about the water storage capacity, currently projected at 2.5 million acre feet.
We think it should be larger, not only for the obvious reason of protecting Sacramento from flooding, but to ensure the integrity of the American River Parkway, and reduce the use, as is now sadly happening, of the Lower American River as a flood conveyance vehicle where the river has to carry the water out of Folsom Dam to open storage space, creating very high-water levels on the river, inundating the Parkway, virtually destroying the public’s freedom to use it as intended.
A recent report (March 21, 2006) indicates that: “Accumulated snowpack/inflow estimates through 2/14 [06] indicated there is approximately 1.42 maf [million acre feet] of expected inflow for the remainder of the water year.”
That is about 420 thousand acre feet beyond Folsom Dam’s capacity of about 1 million acre feet, which clearly shows the importance of having a lot more storage available than projected in the current Auburn Dam design of 2.5 million acre feet.
We are continuing our research about the level of storage we feel is needed, and should be able to provide that information in our September 2006 report on water storage and supply.
Here is an excerpt.
Auburn dam may have sponsor
American River Authority board looks at moving project forward
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 13, 2006
WASHINGTON - The American River Authority, an obscure joint-powers agency with a modest budget, is considering stepping forward as the local sponsor for building a multipurpose dam at Auburn that could cost $3 billion, and perhaps a lot more.
"I think we will," said Bruce Kranz, a Placer County supervisor who heads the panel.
This move comes as a group of key House Republicans is organizing to revive construction of the controversial dam. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, said he plans to seek $5 million soon to begin work on a feasibility study for the dam.
That study, which Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said could cost upward of $30 million, almost certainly would require a local sponsor to pick up half the cost.
"This is fantastic news," Doolittle said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "A local sponsor has been the missing piece of the puzzle. We are closer now to building an Auburn dam than we've been in years."
The authority is controlled by a six-member board, which is closely connected to Doolittle. The board consists of one supervisor from Placer, El Dorado and San Joaquin counties, and representatives of the Placer and El Dorado water agencies. A sixth at-large member is elected by the other five.
Construction of a dam has been endorsed by top Republican leaders of the House Appropriations Committee. But so far, no congressional Democrat has backed its construction, and Democrats have raised concern that the project could stall work on improvements to Folsom Dam.
"Some of those views will have to change for this to move forward," Doolittle conceded, saying that modifications to Folsom Dam would be needed regardless of whether the Auburn dam is built.
The lack of a local sponsor has been a primary criticism raised by opponents of an Auburn dam. Last week, for instance, after the dam emerged as a rallying point at a House Resources Committee hearing, Ronald Stork of Friends of the River condemned the project as "fantasy world."
"The project would need a giant multiyear engineering, environmental, seismic-safety feasibility study that would cost tens of millions of dollars, and it is uncertain whether there are any cost-sharing partners willing to sustain the multiyear study," he said.
At their April meeting Monday, authority members discussed the possibility of becoming the sponsoring agency. No decision was made and the topic was set for further consideration in May.
But Kranz, chairman of the authority, said he thinks the panel will vote to play a sponsoring role after the Bureau of Reclamation finishes a report updating costs and benefits for the project. Doolittle won a $1 million earmark in a spending bill last year for the study, due for completion in August.
Kranz said that what the authority has in mind is paying the local share of the dam with proceeds from the sale of revenue bonds that would not add to the local tax burden.
The bonds would be repaid from sales of power and surplus water.
While being very satisfied with the location and current type of dam being considered at the Auburn Dam site, we still have concerns about the water storage capacity, currently projected at 2.5 million acre feet.
We think it should be larger, not only for the obvious reason of protecting Sacramento from flooding, but to ensure the integrity of the American River Parkway, and reduce the use, as is now sadly happening, of the Lower American River as a flood conveyance vehicle where the river has to carry the water out of Folsom Dam to open storage space, creating very high-water levels on the river, inundating the Parkway, virtually destroying the public’s freedom to use it as intended.
A recent report (March 21, 2006) indicates that: “Accumulated snowpack/inflow estimates through 2/14 [06] indicated there is approximately 1.42 maf [million acre feet] of expected inflow for the remainder of the water year.”
That is about 420 thousand acre feet beyond Folsom Dam’s capacity of about 1 million acre feet, which clearly shows the importance of having a lot more storage available than projected in the current Auburn Dam design of 2.5 million acre feet.
We are continuing our research about the level of storage we feel is needed, and should be able to provide that information in our September 2006 report on water storage and supply.
Here is an excerpt.
Auburn dam may have sponsor
American River Authority board looks at moving project forward
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 13, 2006
WASHINGTON - The American River Authority, an obscure joint-powers agency with a modest budget, is considering stepping forward as the local sponsor for building a multipurpose dam at Auburn that could cost $3 billion, and perhaps a lot more.
"I think we will," said Bruce Kranz, a Placer County supervisor who heads the panel.
This move comes as a group of key House Republicans is organizing to revive construction of the controversial dam. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, said he plans to seek $5 million soon to begin work on a feasibility study for the dam.
That study, which Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said could cost upward of $30 million, almost certainly would require a local sponsor to pick up half the cost.
"This is fantastic news," Doolittle said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "A local sponsor has been the missing piece of the puzzle. We are closer now to building an Auburn dam than we've been in years."
The authority is controlled by a six-member board, which is closely connected to Doolittle. The board consists of one supervisor from Placer, El Dorado and San Joaquin counties, and representatives of the Placer and El Dorado water agencies. A sixth at-large member is elected by the other five.
Construction of a dam has been endorsed by top Republican leaders of the House Appropriations Committee. But so far, no congressional Democrat has backed its construction, and Democrats have raised concern that the project could stall work on improvements to Folsom Dam.
"Some of those views will have to change for this to move forward," Doolittle conceded, saying that modifications to Folsom Dam would be needed regardless of whether the Auburn dam is built.
The lack of a local sponsor has been a primary criticism raised by opponents of an Auburn dam. Last week, for instance, after the dam emerged as a rallying point at a House Resources Committee hearing, Ronald Stork of Friends of the River condemned the project as "fantasy world."
"The project would need a giant multiyear engineering, environmental, seismic-safety feasibility study that would cost tens of millions of dollars, and it is uncertain whether there are any cost-sharing partners willing to sustain the multiyear study," he said.
At their April meeting Monday, authority members discussed the possibility of becoming the sponsoring agency. No decision was made and the topic was set for further consideration in May.
But Kranz, chairman of the authority, said he thinks the panel will vote to play a sponsoring role after the Bureau of Reclamation finishes a report updating costs and benefits for the project. Doolittle won a $1 million earmark in a spending bill last year for the study, due for completion in August.
Kranz said that what the authority has in mind is paying the local share of the dam with proceeds from the sale of revenue bonds that would not add to the local tax burden.
The bonds would be repaid from sales of power and surplus water.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Emergency Declared in Seven Counties
In this story from yesterday’s Bee, it is bad news for the listed counties, (but in another story from this morning's Bee we find that the measuring devices were misread and there is not the flooding danger thought yesterday) but good news for Sacramento County that we are not in the counties listed as in a state of emergency, but that could change as the storm track shifts north, as we can see from this morning’s rain, it has.
If you have looked at the American River lately you might notice that it appears more like a ditch than a river. A ditch that is full of water that needs to be moved somewhere and is barely controlled by its banks.
The managers of the river have to use it this way because they have no big dam to hold the water back for controlled release when needed, but must release as much as they can during storms to keep space open in the small Folsom Dam, at less than 1 million acre feet of storage.
The Lower American River is described in reports discussing this flood control function as being part of the flood conveyance system.
We will all feel more secure when it is once more the river running through the Parkway, rather than the ditch it is now, and that time will only become permanent when we see a major new dam on the American River capable of holding the water generated by our storms, with storage space of at least 3 million acre feet.
Here is an excerpt.
7 counties on emergency list as flood fears grow
By Andy Furillo, Bee Capitol Bureau and Tim Eberly, Fresno Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties Monday and later heard from a state official that "one of the top-five weather seasons on record" has put California on the precipice of a flood disaster.
"All of our reservoirs are full, and we are not able to contain all the water," Les Harder, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, told the governor during a briefing at the department's Flood Operations Center. "So the river system, and the levee system, is being taxed beyond its designed capacity."
Earlier, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Merced, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Stanislaus counties, which have been swamped by weeks of storms and flooding. More heavy rains are in the forecast.
Schwarzenegger declared states of emergency in 34 counties in January. In February, he declared another state of emergency covering the state's fragile levee system, and asked President Bush for a federal disaster declaration on that infrastructure. Bush has not yet responded.
During a briefing for Schwarzenegger and a handful of officials accompanying him, Harder recounted privately owned levees that have flooded homes in Merced and farmland in southern Sacramento County. He noted the water surge that as of Monday afternoon was still approaching the town of Vernalis, just south of Stockton. The Fresno County town of Firebaugh also is in danger of being flooded by the San Joaquin River, Harder added.
In Firebaugh on Monday, furious efforts were under way to avoid that fate.
City Manager Jose Antonio Ramirez said 200 workers from the California Conservation Corps descended upon the rural town to strengthen three places that are most vulnerable to flooding. The workers were being housed in the gymnasium of Firebaugh High School and fed by school officials, Ramirez said.
"The crest of the amount of water that we're expecting has not arrived yet," Ramirez said.
"That's why we're taking all these precautionary measures. The bottom line is, if we don't do this, then we're going to end up scrambling." Laborers from the corps used more than 40,000 sandbags to build a 900-foot-long wall along a winding river bank that surrounds a mobile home park and an inn. The water was still several feet from coming over the bank, but it was already much higher than normal, residents said.
If you have looked at the American River lately you might notice that it appears more like a ditch than a river. A ditch that is full of water that needs to be moved somewhere and is barely controlled by its banks.
The managers of the river have to use it this way because they have no big dam to hold the water back for controlled release when needed, but must release as much as they can during storms to keep space open in the small Folsom Dam, at less than 1 million acre feet of storage.
The Lower American River is described in reports discussing this flood control function as being part of the flood conveyance system.
We will all feel more secure when it is once more the river running through the Parkway, rather than the ditch it is now, and that time will only become permanent when we see a major new dam on the American River capable of holding the water generated by our storms, with storage space of at least 3 million acre feet.
Here is an excerpt.
7 counties on emergency list as flood fears grow
By Andy Furillo, Bee Capitol Bureau and Tim Eberly, Fresno Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties Monday and later heard from a state official that "one of the top-five weather seasons on record" has put California on the precipice of a flood disaster.
"All of our reservoirs are full, and we are not able to contain all the water," Les Harder, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, told the governor during a briefing at the department's Flood Operations Center. "So the river system, and the levee system, is being taxed beyond its designed capacity."
Earlier, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Merced, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Stanislaus counties, which have been swamped by weeks of storms and flooding. More heavy rains are in the forecast.
Schwarzenegger declared states of emergency in 34 counties in January. In February, he declared another state of emergency covering the state's fragile levee system, and asked President Bush for a federal disaster declaration on that infrastructure. Bush has not yet responded.
During a briefing for Schwarzenegger and a handful of officials accompanying him, Harder recounted privately owned levees that have flooded homes in Merced and farmland in southern Sacramento County. He noted the water surge that as of Monday afternoon was still approaching the town of Vernalis, just south of Stockton. The Fresno County town of Firebaugh also is in danger of being flooded by the San Joaquin River, Harder added.
In Firebaugh on Monday, furious efforts were under way to avoid that fate.
City Manager Jose Antonio Ramirez said 200 workers from the California Conservation Corps descended upon the rural town to strengthen three places that are most vulnerable to flooding. The workers were being housed in the gymnasium of Firebaugh High School and fed by school officials, Ramirez said.
"The crest of the amount of water that we're expecting has not arrived yet," Ramirez said.
"That's why we're taking all these precautionary measures. The bottom line is, if we don't do this, then we're going to end up scrambling." Laborers from the corps used more than 40,000 sandbags to build a 900-foot-long wall along a winding river bank that surrounds a mobile home park and an inn. The water was still several feet from coming over the bank, but it was already much higher than normal, residents said.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
A Curious Taboo
The title of this editorial from today’s Bee looks promising but the content doesn't really meet the optimal promise.
The cure for flooding water is to stop it, most effectively through dam technology, but there is still a curious taboo at play in seeing that as a viable cure by many involved in the local discussion.
Editorial: Flood Band-Aids
Triage for levees not enough; cures needed
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The decrepit condition of California's flood control system - and the state's lack of a way to ensure homes aren't built in the wrong places - is now on full display in the San Joaquin River watershed.
Melting snow and a series of spring storms are threatening to overtop levees from Firebaugh down to the Delta. For many communities, the only thing that stands between them and total immersion are a few sandbags and some plastic sheeting. (As of this writing, no San Joaquin levees had broken, but that could change by the time this paper lands on your doorstep.)
As the Department of Water Resources has demonstrated, state employees can react quickly, and work long hours over a weekend, when the water is at trouble's door. DWR is now spending millions of dollars it had saved for summer levee repairs so it can sandbag the most vulnerable sections of the San Joaquin. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Monday.
It may not be enough. The San Joaquin does not have a major flood control bypass - such as the Yolo bypass near Sacramento - and its levees and reservoirs are designed to handle normal snow melt, not a wave of wet storms.
This is not news. Following the 1997 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a series of recommendations for the San Joaquin, including new bypasses, channels and set-back levees. Farm groups opposed these proposals, partly because the bypasses would inundate some of their existing agricultural land.
The result - as is often the case in flood control - is an impasse. No one wins and everyone loses.
The cure for flooding water is to stop it, most effectively through dam technology, but there is still a curious taboo at play in seeing that as a viable cure by many involved in the local discussion.
Hopefully, it is a taboo that will soon be lifted, as the long-range discussion and planning needed to see optimal solutions for our severe flooding problems become reality, need to happen in an atmosphere of creative collegiality, where all of the options for a cure are on the table and openly debated.
Here is an excerpt.Editorial: Flood Band-Aids
Triage for levees not enough; cures needed
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The decrepit condition of California's flood control system - and the state's lack of a way to ensure homes aren't built in the wrong places - is now on full display in the San Joaquin River watershed.
Melting snow and a series of spring storms are threatening to overtop levees from Firebaugh down to the Delta. For many communities, the only thing that stands between them and total immersion are a few sandbags and some plastic sheeting. (As of this writing, no San Joaquin levees had broken, but that could change by the time this paper lands on your doorstep.)
As the Department of Water Resources has demonstrated, state employees can react quickly, and work long hours over a weekend, when the water is at trouble's door. DWR is now spending millions of dollars it had saved for summer levee repairs so it can sandbag the most vulnerable sections of the San Joaquin. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Monday.
It may not be enough. The San Joaquin does not have a major flood control bypass - such as the Yolo bypass near Sacramento - and its levees and reservoirs are designed to handle normal snow melt, not a wave of wet storms.
This is not news. Following the 1997 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a series of recommendations for the San Joaquin, including new bypasses, channels and set-back levees. Farm groups opposed these proposals, partly because the bypasses would inundate some of their existing agricultural land.
The result - as is often the case in flood control - is an impasse. No one wins and everyone loses.
Natomas Flood Protection, Less Than Thought? Part Five
This story from Sunday’s bee reminds us, yet once again, how bad decisions by public leadership can result in such tragic events as happened in New Orleans, and continues to threaten the Sacramento area.
The story of the Natomas levees is the story of our region and promotes the same conclusion, we need to get it right and we can get it right. Lives really do depend on us getting it right.
Here is an excerpt.
Tempting fate: Bad assumptions undermine levees
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, April 9, 2006
On a cloudy February day in 1998, the Army Corps of Engineers wrote Sacramento flood officials to tell them that Natomas, a deep floodplain with wide stretches of undeveloped land, had been fortified against 100-year floods.
It was what everyone had been waiting for. It would lead to cheaper flood insurance, an end to mandatory insurance and the complete lifting of a building moratorium. It would encourage acres of new homes to spread through Natomas, nearly tripling the area's population to 67,000.
Yet that assurance of 100-year protection from rivers and canals was based on illusion.
It was founded on a series of levee studies much scantier than those recommended in the Army Corps of Engineers manual at the time or those conducted by corps districts in several other parts of the United States.
In retrospect, it's clear the corps missed basic features of the ground beneath Natomas levees because of those limited explorations, said David Ricketts, a former corps section chief who reviewed old and new Natomas findings at The Bee's request.
The misstep was fairly simple, resting in how many holes engineers drilled into the levees to bring up fat cylinders of soil. More holes give engineers more information to do lab analyses that are part art and part science, predicting how safe a levee will be if a river runs high. Will its sides slip? Will water seep through or beneath harmlessly, or will the seepage dangerously drag soil along with it?
In the late 1980s, when Natomas levee repairs were being designed, corps contractors had drilled only one hole every 2,000 feet - 2.6 holes per mile - to help answer those questions. That was two to 10 times less than recommended in the Army Corps 1978 manual, which did allow discretion because local conditions can vary so widely.
Using that discretion turned out to be a poor choice.
New studies have concluded the area would not be safe in a 100-year flood, the kind spawned by storms with a 1 percent chance of sweeping through in any year. It will cost $140 million to $200 million and take until roughly 2011 to provide that protection, according to the top engineer of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.
So many factors go into assessing a levee that it would be too simplistic to blame scanty explorations alone for the different conclusions of 1998 and 2006, said Ricketts and many other geotechnical experts. Corps engineers stress that a later flood helped them learn from their mistakes.
And yet, two things emerge plainly in the wake of the Natomas about-face:
* Today, after institutional soul-searching, the Sacramento corps' engineers and contractors are strongly encouraged to do at least 15 probes for each levee mile, and sometimes 50 or more, leading the district to warn that numerous Central Valley levees may not be up to snuff.
* Just as the definition of safety has changed sharply twice in Natomas, it could change again, as corps standards are re-examined in the wake of New Orleans levee failures, bigger storms and other developments. So even if Natomas regains 100-year protection, there is no guarantee it will keep it. And there's no guarantee for other communities, either.
"No matter what kind of levee you're behind, you should assume there's a risk," said John Hess, chief of the geotechnical and environmental engineering branch at the Sacramento corps. Each improvement lessens the risk, Hess said, and today Natomas' levees are unquestionably sturdier than before their last round of repairs.
But the risk never disappears.
The story of the Natomas levees is the story of our region and promotes the same conclusion, we need to get it right and we can get it right. Lives really do depend on us getting it right.
Here is an excerpt.
Tempting fate: Bad assumptions undermine levees
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, April 9, 2006
On a cloudy February day in 1998, the Army Corps of Engineers wrote Sacramento flood officials to tell them that Natomas, a deep floodplain with wide stretches of undeveloped land, had been fortified against 100-year floods.
It was what everyone had been waiting for. It would lead to cheaper flood insurance, an end to mandatory insurance and the complete lifting of a building moratorium. It would encourage acres of new homes to spread through Natomas, nearly tripling the area's population to 67,000.
Yet that assurance of 100-year protection from rivers and canals was based on illusion.
It was founded on a series of levee studies much scantier than those recommended in the Army Corps of Engineers manual at the time or those conducted by corps districts in several other parts of the United States.
In retrospect, it's clear the corps missed basic features of the ground beneath Natomas levees because of those limited explorations, said David Ricketts, a former corps section chief who reviewed old and new Natomas findings at The Bee's request.
The misstep was fairly simple, resting in how many holes engineers drilled into the levees to bring up fat cylinders of soil. More holes give engineers more information to do lab analyses that are part art and part science, predicting how safe a levee will be if a river runs high. Will its sides slip? Will water seep through or beneath harmlessly, or will the seepage dangerously drag soil along with it?
In the late 1980s, when Natomas levee repairs were being designed, corps contractors had drilled only one hole every 2,000 feet - 2.6 holes per mile - to help answer those questions. That was two to 10 times less than recommended in the Army Corps 1978 manual, which did allow discretion because local conditions can vary so widely.
Using that discretion turned out to be a poor choice.
New studies have concluded the area would not be safe in a 100-year flood, the kind spawned by storms with a 1 percent chance of sweeping through in any year. It will cost $140 million to $200 million and take until roughly 2011 to provide that protection, according to the top engineer of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.
So many factors go into assessing a levee that it would be too simplistic to blame scanty explorations alone for the different conclusions of 1998 and 2006, said Ricketts and many other geotechnical experts. Corps engineers stress that a later flood helped them learn from their mistakes.
And yet, two things emerge plainly in the wake of the Natomas about-face:
* Today, after institutional soul-searching, the Sacramento corps' engineers and contractors are strongly encouraged to do at least 15 probes for each levee mile, and sometimes 50 or more, leading the district to warn that numerous Central Valley levees may not be up to snuff.
* Just as the definition of safety has changed sharply twice in Natomas, it could change again, as corps standards are re-examined in the wake of New Orleans levee failures, bigger storms and other developments. So even if Natomas regains 100-year protection, there is no guarantee it will keep it. And there's no guarantee for other communities, either.
"No matter what kind of levee you're behind, you should assume there's a risk," said John Hess, chief of the geotechnical and environmental engineering branch at the Sacramento corps. Each improvement lessens the risk, Hess said, and today Natomas' levees are unquestionably sturdier than before their last round of repairs.
But the risk never disappears.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Watching the Levees
This story from Saturday’s Bee makes the case for the balanced approach the previous post described, as “the [water control] system is running at capacity and needs a major upgrade.”
It should becoming clear that along with the strengthening of levees, raising of Folsom Dam, a major new dam on the American River, and the Peripheral Canal, are all needed at some point in our future to fully solve the long-standing water issues in our state.
Here is an excerpt
Anxious eyes on levees
Officials, residents brace for more flooding as crews shore up defenses.
By Matt Weiser and Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff Writers Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 8, 2006
State officials said Friday they are extremely worried about levee failures on the San Joaquin River this weekend as more storms dump precipitation into already swollen flood channels and reservoirs.
Flood conditions are not expected to threaten Sacramento. But the San Joaquin Valley is deemed particularly vulnerable because it lies more directly in the path of storms forecast to arrive next week. San Joaquin Valley reservoirs and river channels are much smaller and already strained.
The state Department of Water Resources has moved a crew of about 120 people, including three California Conservation Corps teams, into the area to shore up weak levees in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
Levee failures in the area could flood hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of farmland.
"We are extremely worried there is a potential of levee failure, particularly in the San Joaquin River system," said Jay Punia, chief of flood operations for DWR. "If someone's living behind a levee, they should be extremely cautious."
The National Weather Service predicts that the San Joaquin River at Vernalis, south of Lathrop, will reach flood stage of 29 feet late Sunday as a new storm moves through the area this weekend.
The weather service predicts the river will exceed the "danger stage" of 29.5 feet on Monday.
"Chances are, we're going to break a levee before we reach those flows,' said Cindy Matthews, a weather service hydrologist in Sacramento. "We haven't seen levels like this since 1997, and these are significant levels on the lower San Joaquin River."
It should becoming clear that along with the strengthening of levees, raising of Folsom Dam, a major new dam on the American River, and the Peripheral Canal, are all needed at some point in our future to fully solve the long-standing water issues in our state.
Here is an excerpt
Anxious eyes on levees
Officials, residents brace for more flooding as crews shore up defenses.
By Matt Weiser and Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff Writers Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 8, 2006
State officials said Friday they are extremely worried about levee failures on the San Joaquin River this weekend as more storms dump precipitation into already swollen flood channels and reservoirs.
Flood conditions are not expected to threaten Sacramento. But the San Joaquin Valley is deemed particularly vulnerable because it lies more directly in the path of storms forecast to arrive next week. San Joaquin Valley reservoirs and river channels are much smaller and already strained.
The state Department of Water Resources has moved a crew of about 120 people, including three California Conservation Corps teams, into the area to shore up weak levees in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
Levee failures in the area could flood hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of farmland.
"We are extremely worried there is a potential of levee failure, particularly in the San Joaquin River system," said Jay Punia, chief of flood operations for DWR. "If someone's living behind a levee, they should be extremely cautious."
The National Weather Service predicts that the San Joaquin River at Vernalis, south of Lathrop, will reach flood stage of 29 feet late Sunday as a new storm moves through the area this weekend.
The weather service predicts the river will exceed the "danger stage" of 29.5 feet on Monday.
"Chances are, we're going to break a levee before we reach those flows,' said Cindy Matthews, a weather service hydrologist in Sacramento. "We haven't seen levels like this since 1997, and these are significant levels on the lower San Joaquin River."
The Peripheral Canal
This April 5th report from the Pacific Research Institute is one good suggestion for addressing California’s water issues.
Here is an excerpt.
Vol. 11, No. 14 April 5 , 2006
A Solution for California's Water Problems
by K. Lloyd Billingsley
SACRAMENTO, CA – California's capital, though some 90 miles inland, is barely above sea level. At this writing the water level at the I St. bridge on the Sacramento River, not far from where it is joined by the swiftly flowing American River, is more than 27 feet. The rains continue, and should the levees give out — perhaps nudged by an earthquake or terrorist act — the city could be transformed into New Orleans after Katrina. These damp realities highlight one of California's major problems and recall a possible solution.
California is really two states. Southern California has more people but remains arid most of the year and needs more water. Northern California gets more rain than it needs. In years of heavy rainfall, like this one, the downpour strains the system of aging and sometimes deteriorating levees near Sacramento and in the Delta to the southwest. A system of weirs diverts water around flood-prone Sacramento. In general the system works, but authorities must carefully control releases from Shasta, Oroville, and Folsom dams. A strong case can be made that the system is running at capacity and needs a major upgrade.
One solution, advanced during the 1980s, is a canal that would divert northern California's abundant water flow around the Delta and send it south. It was called the Peripheral Canal, and it would have doubled the amount of water heading south with a flow of 22,300 cubic feet per second, roughly equivalent to the Hudson River. The plan went down to defeat but conditions have changed since then.California now gets less water from the Colorado River than it did during the 1980s, prompting a search for new sources as the state's population continues to grow in both the north and south. Flooding has tipped key editorial opinion in the north in favor of the canal. "The better solution to that dilemma," wrote Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee, "would be to build the long-moribund Peripheral Canal that would carry freshwater from the Sacramento River around the Delta, thereby not only ensuring the quality of State Water Project flows, but undoing the ecological damage that Delta water extractions caus
Here is an excerpt.
Vol. 11, No. 14 April 5 , 2006
A Solution for California's Water Problems
by K. Lloyd Billingsley
SACRAMENTO, CA – California's capital, though some 90 miles inland, is barely above sea level. At this writing the water level at the I St. bridge on the Sacramento River, not far from where it is joined by the swiftly flowing American River, is more than 27 feet. The rains continue, and should the levees give out — perhaps nudged by an earthquake or terrorist act — the city could be transformed into New Orleans after Katrina. These damp realities highlight one of California's major problems and recall a possible solution.
California is really two states. Southern California has more people but remains arid most of the year and needs more water. Northern California gets more rain than it needs. In years of heavy rainfall, like this one, the downpour strains the system of aging and sometimes deteriorating levees near Sacramento and in the Delta to the southwest. A system of weirs diverts water around flood-prone Sacramento. In general the system works, but authorities must carefully control releases from Shasta, Oroville, and Folsom dams. A strong case can be made that the system is running at capacity and needs a major upgrade.
One solution, advanced during the 1980s, is a canal that would divert northern California's abundant water flow around the Delta and send it south. It was called the Peripheral Canal, and it would have doubled the amount of water heading south with a flow of 22,300 cubic feet per second, roughly equivalent to the Hudson River. The plan went down to defeat but conditions have changed since then.California now gets less water from the Colorado River than it did during the 1980s, prompting a search for new sources as the state's population continues to grow in both the north and south. Flooding has tipped key editorial opinion in the north in favor of the canal. "The better solution to that dilemma," wrote Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee, "would be to build the long-moribund Peripheral Canal that would carry freshwater from the Sacramento River around the Delta, thereby not only ensuring the quality of State Water Project flows, but undoing the ecological damage that Delta water extractions caus
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Discovery Park Swamp
I drove from I-5, east on the Garden Highway today, to see what damage the high-water flows on the American River have caused to the confluence area of the Parkway, and it is a muddy, debris-ridden, standing-water mess that reminds you, visually at least, of a swampy industrial backwater.
Discovery Park is closed, as is Northgate Boulevard from the Garden Highway. It is a real shame that one of the most beautiful areas of the Parkway is so damaged and inaccessible, and apparently will be for weeks.
The integrity of the Parkway is important to protect, particularly this area that is central for some of the poorer communities adjacent to the Parkway, as environmental justice calls on public leadership to protect those park and open space areas which are often the only natural resources available to the poor.
We can do a better job taking care of our Parkway.
Hopefully, with the levee improvements, the raising of Folsom Dam, and a major new dam built on the American River, it might be that in 15 years or so, we will see the Parkway well protected from this type of all-too-regularly-occurring devastation.
Discovery Park is closed, as is Northgate Boulevard from the Garden Highway. It is a real shame that one of the most beautiful areas of the Parkway is so damaged and inaccessible, and apparently will be for weeks.
The integrity of the Parkway is important to protect, particularly this area that is central for some of the poorer communities adjacent to the Parkway, as environmental justice calls on public leadership to protect those park and open space areas which are often the only natural resources available to the poor.
We can do a better job taking care of our Parkway.
Hopefully, with the levee improvements, the raising of Folsom Dam, and a major new dam built on the American River, it might be that in 15 years or so, we will see the Parkway well protected from this type of all-too-regularly-occurring devastation.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Auburn Dam on the Table, Part Four
This article from today’s Bee is a fuller explanation of the previous post on the Auburn Dam discussion in Congress.
The most significant aspect of this discussion is that the dam can be completed about the same time as the levee improvements and Folsom Dam modifications, all of which are needed to provide the optimal protection to Sacramento and the Parkway.
Here is an excerpt.
House panel favors dam
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - A House hearing Thursday on protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from catastrophic levee failures turned into a mini-rally for constructing an Auburn dam on the American River.
Reps. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said a multipurpose dam at Auburn was the only way Sacramento would be able to achieve the 500-year flood protection that other urban areas have.
Others said an Auburn dam also would help relieve pressure on Delta levees during threatening flood conditions.
The remarks came at a House Resources Committee hearing conducted by its energy and water panel. Pombo is chairman of the full committee and Radanovich heads the energy and power subcommittee.
The building Republican enthusiasm for a dam comes as Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, is planning to move ahead with funding for a feasibility study on the dam in a 2007 spending bill for the Bureau of Reclamation that would build it.
Twice before the Sacramento-area congressional delegation has tried to pass legislation authorizing construction of a dry dam at Auburn that would retain water only when the American River was in flood.
Both times the effort was defeated, first on the House floor and later in committee.
But Doolittle is proceeding under a 1965 authorization for a multipurpose dam with year-round storage and power production.
While more than $400 million was spent on land acquisition and construction, work on the dam stopped in 1975 because of concerns about its ability to survive an earthquake.
Those questions were later resolved, but by then the local share of the cost for such projects had been raised by Congress and construction was never revived.
Hurricane Katrina has redoubled political pressure to increase Sacramento and Delta flood protection and given dam proponents new ammunition.
New Orleans had more than twice the level of protection of Sacramento, the most at-risk urban area in the country from flooding, and its devastation has intensified efforts to protect Sacramento from a similar fate.
At Thursday's hearing, Radanovich stressed that the standard for protection of most major urban areas is 500 years, meaning a 1 in 500 chance of major flooding in any given year.
The only way to reach that goal in Sacramento is to build an Auburn dam.
The most significant aspect of this discussion is that the dam can be completed about the same time as the levee improvements and Folsom Dam modifications, all of which are needed to provide the optimal protection to Sacramento and the Parkway.
Here is an excerpt.
House panel favors dam
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - A House hearing Thursday on protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from catastrophic levee failures turned into a mini-rally for constructing an Auburn dam on the American River.
Reps. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said a multipurpose dam at Auburn was the only way Sacramento would be able to achieve the 500-year flood protection that other urban areas have.
Others said an Auburn dam also would help relieve pressure on Delta levees during threatening flood conditions.
The remarks came at a House Resources Committee hearing conducted by its energy and water panel. Pombo is chairman of the full committee and Radanovich heads the energy and power subcommittee.
The building Republican enthusiasm for a dam comes as Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, is planning to move ahead with funding for a feasibility study on the dam in a 2007 spending bill for the Bureau of Reclamation that would build it.
Twice before the Sacramento-area congressional delegation has tried to pass legislation authorizing construction of a dry dam at Auburn that would retain water only when the American River was in flood.
Both times the effort was defeated, first on the House floor and later in committee.
But Doolittle is proceeding under a 1965 authorization for a multipurpose dam with year-round storage and power production.
While more than $400 million was spent on land acquisition and construction, work on the dam stopped in 1975 because of concerns about its ability to survive an earthquake.
Those questions were later resolved, but by then the local share of the cost for such projects had been raised by Congress and construction was never revived.
Hurricane Katrina has redoubled political pressure to increase Sacramento and Delta flood protection and given dam proponents new ammunition.
New Orleans had more than twice the level of protection of Sacramento, the most at-risk urban area in the country from flooding, and its devastation has intensified efforts to protect Sacramento from a similar fate.
At Thursday's hearing, Radanovich stressed that the standard for protection of most major urban areas is 500 years, meaning a 1 in 500 chance of major flooding in any given year.
The only way to reach that goal in Sacramento is to build an Auburn dam.
Auburn Dam on the Table, Part Three
In this article from yesterday’s Bee (wire story) we see Auburn Dam support apparently growing.
Here is an excerpt.
Congressional supporters of Auburn Dam getting louder
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Published 4:45 pm PDT Thursday, April 6, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) - Key Republican lawmakers said Thursday that building a dam on the American River at Auburn is the only way to protect Sacramento against catastrophic flooding that might occur once every 500 years.
But the head of the California Department of Water Resources cautioned against losing focus on flood-control projects now underway that are meant to give 200-year protection to the region.
Sacramento is now protected only at the 100-year level - the lowest of any large urban area in the nation.
"Our focus right now in the state is that we need to be sure we get these improvements and not get distracted by the next debate over Auburn Dam," Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow testified at a hearing of the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and water.
"The debate in the past has actually delayed investment in flood improvements in the region," Snow said.
Before Snow spoke, committee chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and subcommittee chairman Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, both spoke in favor of an Auburn Dam, underscoring growing congressional interest in reviving the controversial project years after it seemed to be abandoned for good.
"I don't think anybody can come to an answer that gives us 500-year flood protection for the city of Sacramento without the Auburn Dam," Pombo said. "That's just the cold hard reality that's in front of us right now."
Here is an excerpt.
Congressional supporters of Auburn Dam getting louder
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Published 4:45 pm PDT Thursday, April 6, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) - Key Republican lawmakers said Thursday that building a dam on the American River at Auburn is the only way to protect Sacramento against catastrophic flooding that might occur once every 500 years.
But the head of the California Department of Water Resources cautioned against losing focus on flood-control projects now underway that are meant to give 200-year protection to the region.
Sacramento is now protected only at the 100-year level - the lowest of any large urban area in the nation.
"Our focus right now in the state is that we need to be sure we get these improvements and not get distracted by the next debate over Auburn Dam," Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow testified at a hearing of the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and water.
"The debate in the past has actually delayed investment in flood improvements in the region," Snow said.
Before Snow spoke, committee chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and subcommittee chairman Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, both spoke in favor of an Auburn Dam, underscoring growing congressional interest in reviving the controversial project years after it seemed to be abandoned for good.
"I don't think anybody can come to an answer that gives us 500-year flood protection for the city of Sacramento without the Auburn Dam," Pombo said. "That's just the cold hard reality that's in front of us right now."
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