Posted on 12/03/2005 7:48:31 PM PST by calcowgirl
OLIVEHURST – Warm rains falling atop a heavy snowpack eight years ago swelled rivers tumbling out of the northern Sierra Nevada, turning pastureland north of Sacramento into a massive accidental lake.
The flooding inundated hundreds of homes and left three dead.
If ever there were a place housing developers would want to avoid, this would seem to be it. But memories of the New Year's flood in 1997 are short.
In recent years, thousands of new houses have mushroomed on the land that was under water then, part of a wave of suburban development in California's vast Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. An ever-expanding population and sky-high prices near coastal cities are driving a housing boom in the most flood-prone part of the state.
The aptly named Plumas Lake development north of Sacramento is one of those new suburbs. When it's completed, it will include 11,000 homes sitting atop a filled-in marsh near the former farming town of Olivehurst.
The area is framed by the Feather, Bear and Yuba rivers, which overran their levees during the epic 1997 flood.
Tony and Jennifer Nisbet moved to Plumas Lake six weeks ago from the eastern San Francisco Bay area suburb of San Ramon. Tony Nisbet makes the four-hour commute to the Bay area several days each week, but the couple says the sacrifice is worth the lower prices that allowed them to buy their first home.
Now, with the scenes of New Orleans' flooding fresh in her mind and an aging levee system not far from her front door, Jennifer Nisbet worries about their investment.
"I didn't want to spend $400,000 on a house and have it float away," she said.
The couple asked her father if they could keep his boat in the garage: "That's our evacuation plan," she says.
California's Central Valley is drained by two rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. The rivers and their tributaries once flooded so regularly each winter that the valley was known as the "Inland Sea."
Decades ago, the rivers were channeled behind 1,600 miles of levees built to keep 2 million acres of cropland from the seasonal floods.
Today, about 700,000 homes are in flood areas from Sacramento north to the region that includes the Plumas Lake development, many protected by levees badly in need of repair, according to the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
The regional agency projects an additional 250,000 homes will be built there by 2050. Tens of thousands of homes also are being built in the San Joaquin Valley south of the state capital.
Local government officials say they have little choice but to approve new construction in questionable areas, with the Central Valley's population expected to nearly double to 12 million in 35 years.
"There are those who characterize us as having entered a Faustian agreement with the devil by using development fees to repair the levees," said Yuba County Administrator Kent McClain, whose board approved the Plumas Lake development.
He said the board approved the subdivision partly to protect 24,000 residents who already lived in the danger area. About $30,000 from each new home is helping improve 35 miles of levees, a project that should be completed in 2008.
"If you live in the Central Valley, you're pretty much living in what was a flood plain," said Susan Dell'Osso, who is directing development of 11,000 homes on an island of the San Joaquin River system south of Stockton.
That island also flooded in 1997.
The company is ringing Stewart Island with a second interior levee, betting that homebuyers will pay a premium for more flood protection. Homes atop the new 300-foot wide "super-levee" are expected to sell for $100,000 more than those in the island basin below.
The state Department of Water Resources says the state's aging levee system protects property worth more than $47 billion throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley.
Shoring up the levees sufficiently could cost $7 billion to $12 billion, said Leslie F. Harder Jr., the department's acting deputy director for public safety.
That would provide enough protection for the largest flood expected to occur over a century, and add protection for urban areas.
State lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are considering a multibillion-dollar borrowing program next year to pay for improvements to levees and other aspects of the state's infrastructure, including freeways and ports.
"We're not going to have enough money for everything, and some triage will probably be involved," Harder said.
The greatest flood risk in California comes from warm rain on melting snow, which Harder said can fill reservoirs and rivers to overflowing within days and tax poorly constructed levees.
The risk also carries significant financial liabilities for the state.
A 2003 court decision found the state is liable even for breaches of federally certified levees it did not build. That ruling cost the state $500 million this year for damage caused when levees failed in the Olivehurst area in 1986 and 1997.
Development pressures present an intrinsic problem: Local governments decide whether to allow new homes in flood-prone areas, even though it is the state that bears the financial burden if levees are to blame for flooding those homes.
"We've got to figure out some way to remedy that disconnect to make sure we're not putting more people in harm's way," said state Assemblyman David Jones, a Democrat who represents Sacramento.
Lawmakers are considering mandatory flood insurance for homeowners protected by levees and requiring local governments that approve growth in flood areas to share the liability cost if levees break.
A federal certification that a levee can withstand a once-a-century flood is enough so that residents need not buy flood insurance. Yet a homeowner behind a 100-year levee has a one-in-four chance of being flooded during the life of a 30-year mortgage, double the risk of a fire.
"Statistically, we're in potentially worse shape than New Orleans. We just haven't gotten ours yet," said George Booth, senior engineer for the Sacramento County Department of Water Resources.
Joel Crawford is among the 90 percent of residents in Natomas, a rapidly expanding section of north Sacramento, who do not have flood insurance. Natomas is one of the areas identified by a regional agency as being one of the most flood-prone sections of the Sacramento Valley.
Crawford said he doesn't believe he needs flood insurance because he doesn't see a danger after living near the river in another part of Sacramento most of his life. He has seen the water level rise and fall, but isn't worried about a Katrina-style catastrophe.
"For me it's just kind of commonplace," he said of the river's periodic swelling. "I think a lot of Sacramento area residents are used to it."
Since Hurricane Katrina, Sacramento officials have been warning of the flood danger during community meetings that sometimes attract thousands of residents, more of whom are now buying flood insurance.
Statewide, just 15 percent of homeowners protected by 100-year levees carry flood insurance, meaning most would get no money to rebuild.
"When I lived in San Francisco, we worried all the time about when's the Big One coming," said Marc Molinari, who moved to his Plumas Lake home a month ago. "No matter where you are, you've got something that's going to plague you. You can't run away from everything. And generally floods are predictable – you can't predict an earthquake."
Jeffrey Mount, a University of California, Davis geology professor, has issued warnings to state legislative committees about the construction in flood areas. But he says trying to stop it is probably futile.
"We're going continue to do development and hope for the best," Mount said. "That political drive is greater than all the forces I can name in nature."
Get flood insurance and heed evacuation orders.
No one is "pushing" them there. These fools are voluntarily paying money to move there! Use your heads, people. We don't want you to drown but we also don't want to pay to rebuild your $500,000 houses every 5 years, either. Move somewhere safer.
State lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are considering a multibillion-dollar borrowing program next year to pay for improvements to levees and other aspects of the state's infrastructure, including freeways and ports.
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Wanna start a pool on how big the Ca MOAB 'mother of all bonds' is gonna be?
They bought their houses.....
They knew what they were getting into....
I say....let them flood!
There is no such thing as flood insurance. What the federal government sells is a document that allows in some cases people to build in places that makes no sense. New Orleans for example.
That's called buying votes.
Flood insurance is nothing more than you and me paying for their stupidity.
It's great farm land...
I see pork, bankers and special-interest investors lurking in the wings.
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=BONDS-12-04-05
Schwarzenegger now is talking about spending on a massive scale, in part by using bonds that future generations will pay for. He says he wants to work with Democrats on a multibillion-dollar package to finance road, levee, school and other infrastructure needs.
Asked as he was traveling in China whether the package could reach $50 billion, the governor didn't blink. It could be "much, much bigger" than $50 billion, he said. "We are looking at something really big."
(snip)
State finance department spokesman H.D. Palmer said Schwarzenegger "is still finalizing what the different components are going to be of the package" and may consider financing methods other than bonds, including public-private partnerships.
>>I say....let them flood!
I hear ya!
I am so sick of my tax sollars going to some idiot ...let them have their own private insurance and see if they want to build!
Yes. Joe Six-Pack continues to build in flood zones. The mental reasoning is rampant all over the country. Duh???
Let me guess... You din't ping me cause you knew I'd rant about this little geoillogical prick Jeffrey Mounts being a buddy to Friends of The River and all the corporate commercial whitewater rafting industry that hate the dams that slow our water down long enough for a pleasant visit, rather than a devastating flood.
Especially Auburn Dam, right???
I didn't ping you because I've had it up the here with men. :-)
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