Tales of 2 Levee Systems

Tales of 2 Levee Systems
Delta development at a crisis point

By Bruce Babbitt
Sunday, January 22, 2006

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is one region where we can never win the war against nature. So we should quit trying. It's time to place the delta permanently off limits to development.

The delta is a place where the waters will always rule the land -- threatening catastrophic flooding whenever the rains return and the rivers rise. Throughout the delta's winding channels, the waters are continually eating away at crumbling earthen levees, many more than 100 years old. Even a mild earthquake could collapse miles of levees, transforming the region between Sacramento, Stockton and Fairfield into a huge lake. Last year, we had a preview of the delta as a lake when a levee surrounding an island known as the Jones Tract collapsed, flooding 12,000 acres of farmland. The ultimate cost to repair the levee, pump out the waters and relevel the land exceeded $100 million. It could happen again, at any time, anywhere along the hundreds of miles of levees that surround the 500,000 acres of reclaimed land on delta islands.

Yet, developers continue to lobby for bigger levees, holding out visions of still more development and suggesting that the state should come up with the $10 billion to $15 billion they say will make the delta safe for subdivisions. But even that astronomical figure would not be sufficient, for their estimates do not acknowledge the elephant in the drawing room -- rising sea levels brought on by global warming. Within this century, rising sea levels in San Francisco Bay will gradually intrude into delta channels, raising water levels by as much as 2 to 3 feet. Building more levees to protect new developments against this onslaught is about as realistic as the legendary King Canute commanding the tides to recede.

In 1992, the Legislature made a sensible start toward putting the delta off limits to development. It created the California Delta Protection Commission, composed of state and local officials appointed by the governor, with limited authority to oversee the planning process of local governments in the delta region.

Adequate for that time, the Delta Protection Commission is no longer sufficient to contain mounting pressures for development. Out in delta country, local officials are agitating for exceptions, pleading that just one more subdivision won't really make that much difference. The controversy has now reached the Legislature, centered on a development proposal called the Old Sugar Mill, located on the fringes of Clarksburg, several miles south of Sacramento. In the past two years, delta protection bills have been passed, sent to the governor, vetoed, reintroduced, watered down, amended and finally sunk in a legislative labyrinth of lobbying and logrolling.

With another winter of heavy rains and flooding upon us, the Legislature should be getting the message. River deltas, precariously situated between land and sea, are not an appropriate place for development, whether in Louisiana or California, on the Mississippi River or the Sacramento. It is a lesson learned too late for the unfortunate residents of New Orleans. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature, however, still have a chance to learn from New Orleans and take action.

It is now time to break the impasse over development. We need a delta protection law that will end the possibility of deals for developers arguing for just one more exception -- a law that will prevent adjacent communities from sprawling into the delta. A law that preserves the delta intact as a place apart, reserved in perpetuity for its water resources, its fisheries, waterfowl, wildlife, agriculture and recreational values.

Bruce Babbitt served as secretary of the U.S. Interior Department during the Clinton administration and as governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987.

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