Free Republic

Officials who OK'd Delta homes illegally failed to consider sea level rise, groups say. Environmental groups plan to file a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court today claiming that flood-control officials violated state law by allowing major levee modifications in San Joaquin County without considering the effect of global warming. The groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, assert that the sea level rise associated with climate change could eventually overtop those levees, putting thousands of people at risk. The suit targets a permit approved June 26 by the state Reclamation Board that cleared the way for the River Islands...

Flood-fighting crews and state water officials will work feverishly for the next 36 hours to keep the San Joaquin River from cresting over its banks. At the end of that period, a huge pulse of water from the rain-bloated river is expected to push its way into the channels and sloughs of the southern Delta near Stockton and Tracy. Flood watchers fear the water will punch holes in the state's aging levee system or overtop the earthen berms to flood towns, roads and agricultural fields. "The break between storms has given us the opportunity to do preparations and pre-positioning without...

State and federal officials are bracing for flooding and levee failures next week on the San Joaquin River near Modesto and Manteca as reservoirs reach capacity and still more rain is forecast. The National Weather Service predicts the river at Vernalis will reach 28 feet Saturday night and continue rising, toward the flood stage of 29 feet, as new storms move through the area this weekend weekend. By Wednesday, the weather service predicts San Joaquin River levels will reach 31.5 feet at Vernalis as another, wetter storm arrives Monday and Tuesday. This is well above the river's "danger stage" of...

If the Central Valley flood protection system was hoping to finish high school, it would need some serious tutoring. On Tuesday, an engineering trade group released a report card on the valley's levees to draw attention in simple terms to their dire condition. The results are not something you'd want to show Mom and Dad: The system as a whole, consisting of more than 2,500 miles of levees, got a D grade. Some areas did worse. "A 'D' is like running around on bald tires," said Tom Smith, chairman of the committee that assigned the grades. "A 'D' is a...

Peripheral project rejected in 1982 -- new proposals met with tepid responseSacramento -- Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans and fears that a catastrophic break is destined somewhere along the 1,100 miles of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have revived the idea of building a canal to ship water around the delta. Twenty-three years ago the notion of what was then called the Peripheral Canal spawned a brutal civil war over water between Northern and Southern California capped by a resounding rejection of the concept at the ballot box. But now the idea is back. Sobered by New...

New Orleans -- Much of the city flooded not because water rushed over the tops of levees, but because two of the storm barriers that ring New Orleans actually shifted and then collapsed, a team of independent engineers said Friday. The preliminary analysis contradicts initial reports by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which said water may have pushed over the top of the levees, eroding the earthen embankments that support the flood walls. The independent engineers said the shifting of the barriers was understandable and did not assign blame or speculate about design flaws that the storm surge from...

The river is rising, rain is pounding down and a powerful wind howls out of the Delta. A storm lashes across East Contra Costa County as an unusually high tide surges through the Golden Gate and up the Carquinez Strait, roiling the normally quiet waters at places like Dutch Slough, Old River and Sand Mound Slough. The region's 100-year-old levee systems give way in several places, flooding the below-sea-level islands and tracts. Thousands flee to higher ground, picking their way along the region's evacuation routes, mostly traffic-clogged, debris-strewn country roads. The power is out, telephone and cell phone networks are...

The chaos will wash in on a heavy, warm rain. It will tumble down mountainsides as the unseasonably balmy storm melts a thick snowpack. It will barrel downstream as rivers thrash within their levees. Then it will burst free, a flood that will leave hundreds of thousands sodden, shell-shocked and saying - as those watching New Orleans have been saying for two weeks - "We all knew this could happen." Many will echo the second refrain now heard from the ruins of the depopulated Louisiana city: "Why weren't we better prepared?" In California's Central Valley, a region that endures repeated...

A bill that some called a "baby steps" effort to deal with California's colossal flood risks did not pass out of the Legislature this week, prompting concern that there is little appetite to deal with the messy, expensive problem of neglected levees. Images of a submerged New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina helped revive the bill from a months-long slumber. But those pictures of death and despair did not prompt enough votes in the state Senate to bring the bill forward as an urgency measure before the session closed Thursday night. Sell It Yourself The bill, AB 1665...