PLACERVILLE . INFO

Q. What are the chances of flooding in Sacramento?

A review of Sacramento's flood protection after the 1986 flood found that Folsom Dam and Sacramento's 60-year old levee system provided Sacramento with just 78-year level protection, the least of any major urban community in America.

After the disastrous flooding in 1986 (which caused 13 deaths and $1 billion in damage), a review of Sacramento's flood protection by the US Army Corps of Engineers found that levees along the American River have about a 60% chance of failing during a 100-year flood event. Experts predict that there is a one-in-three chance that a flood larger than the floods in 1986 will occur in the next thirty years.

Q. What is at risk?

400,000 people live in the area which would be flooded. Included in the area are 160,000 residential structures, 5,000 businesses, 1,200 government facilities (including the State Capitol), seven of the region's nine hospitals, and 130 schools. Flood depths will range from 5 to 20 feet in a floodplain which stretches over 170 square miles. The Corps has determined that a flood could leave the area under water for as long as 60 days.

Damages -- not including costs for local and statewide business disruption -- are estimated to range from a minimum of $7 billion for a 100-year flood to over $16 billion for a 400-year flood.

Q. What would be the cost to the federal government?

A 100-year flood would cause damages that would be comparable to those suffered in the devastating 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A 400-year flood would cause damages to more than double.

Assuming a public/private commitment comparable to that used for the Loma Prieta earthquake, costs for relief and reconstruction would be as follows:

By way of comparison, the federal government spent $4.8 billion in disaster relief in the 1993 Midwest floods.

Q. Have local cost-sharing partners committed to the Auburn Dam as the locally-preferred alternative?

Yes. In October 1995, the California State Board of Reclamation approved a resolution calling for a multipurpose dam at Auburn. In November 1995, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (SAFCA) approved a resolution calling for a dam at Auburn. Both of the non-federal sponsors are committed to paying for their portion of the dam. Local cost-sharing partners will be paying for about $350 million in flood improvements.

Q. Is there public support for the dam? Will residents be willing to pay for their share of the dam?

In the most comprehensive scientific survey to date (taken in February 1996), the Auburn dam was supported 4 to 1 as the preferred flood control alternative of area residents. The survey showed that fully two-thirds of all Sacramento area residents support a dam at Auburn; less than 17% opposed a dam.

More importantly, even in anti-tax Northern California, area residents are committed to increasing their property assessments to pay for the dam. According to the survey, a majority of the respondents indicated that they would be willing to increase their assessments by $90 a year, more than enough to pay for the local share of the dam.

Q. Opponents to the dam claim this is a highly controversial project. Is the Sacramento region extremely divided on this issue, as the opponents claim?

This claim is patently false and not supported by the facts. There is overwhelming community support for the construction of a dam at Auburn.

The dam is also supported by the bipartisan Sacramento congressional delegation, the State of California, the State Board of Reclamation, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (comprised of members of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, the City of Sacramento and various reclamation districts), the Boards of Supervisors of El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Counties, numerous area City Councils, the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and numerous other chambers, the Building & Trades Council, the Sacramento County Taxpayers League, and dozens of other civic and professional organizations.

The only opposition to this project comes from the environmental community

Q. Why does Sacramento require 500 year flood protection?

After the 1993 Midwest floods, the Interagency Floodplain Management Review Committee extensively studied the causes of the flood and issued guidelines on flood prevention. Its authoritative recommendation was that urban population centers like Sacramento, where there is a great threat of loss of life and damage to critical infrastructure, should possess 500-year flood protection. In fact, this same report, commonly known as the "Galloway Report," found that, in the 1993 floods, large urban centers like St. Louis which possessed 500-year protection via dams and levees were left relatively unscathed.

Sacramento isn't unique in its need for 500-year flood protection. Many other metropolitan river cities have 500-year protection, including Tacoma, WA; Hannibal, MO; St. Louis, MO; Kansas City, MO; Topeka, KS; and Omaha, NE.

Q. Isn't the cost of the dam considerably more than that of the other alternative?

Not really. In terms of "bang for the buck," the dam is clearly the best investment.

The federal contribution to the dam (which would provide in excess of 500-year flood protection) would be about $609 million in new appropriations. Two other alternatives were studied -- and ultimately rejected -- by the local cost-sharing partners: the federal costs for the Stepped Release Plan (235-year protection) would be $455 million and the federal costs for the Folsom Dam Modification Plan (180-year protection) would be $245 million.

But, because it provides a 2-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio, the Corps of Engineers selected the Auburn Dam as the National Economic Development (NED) proposal. In other words, for the amount of money invested, the federal government recoups the greatest benefits from the Auburn Dam plan.

Q. Opponents to the dam contend that other alternatives will provide the flood control necessary for Sacramento. Are they right?

The "standard project flood" for the Sacramento region requires a minimum of 250-year flood protection, although experts acknowledge that, because of changing weather patterns, protection from such a flood may still be woefully inadequate. (The "standard project flood" is defined as "the flow that can be expected from the most severe combination of meterologic and hydrologic conditions reasonably characteristic of the geographic region involved.")

The Corps of Engineers' American River Watershed Project final report concluded that a dam at Auburn is the only alternative that gives protection against the standard project flood -- as did, the American River Coalition, a coalition of environmental groups opposed to the dam, in testimony before Congress.

Of the two other alternatives, the Folsom Dam Modification plan must be rejected because it would provide only 180-year protection.

At a total cost of $612 million, the Stepped Release Plan would provide a maximum of 235-year protection, still less than what is needed to protect Sacramento from the standard project flood. This fact alone should be enough to eliminate this plan from consideration.

But there are numerous other problems with this plan, including:

1. the plan provides less than half the flood protection of the dam at nearly three-quarters of the cost. The Corps has determined that the non-dam plan still has a 1 in 3 chance of failing a 200-year flood and leaves Sacramento with a 1 in 8 chance of flooding over the next thirty years, clearly unacceptable for the $455 million federal investment required.

    

2. the plan is completely inflexible and allows for no margin of error in the predicted flood model. If the trend toward higher flood flows continues and there is a need for increased flood control capacity -- which is highly likely -- there would be no way to squeeze the additional capacity from the Stepped Release Plan. The only option at that point is to spend an additional $900 million to build a dam at Auburn.

    

3. the plan relies heavily on miles of earthen levees which are between 45 and 65-years old. The Interagency Floodplain Management Review Committee, impaneled after the 1993 Midwest flooding, said this of levees: "Even though areas protected by levees are considered safe, the potential for catastrophic loss still exists." Four years ago, the Corps, the State and SAFCA all acknowledged the weakness of levees in their 1991 flood control report when they wrote: "For highly urbanized areas such as Sacramento, a flood control detention facility is preferred over levees. Reliance on levees for flood protection for Sacramento is considered inherently less safe than an upstream detention dam."

    

4. the plan devastates Folsom Reservoir. The plan results in draining Folsom Lake, historically the most highly utilized state recreation area of its kind in California, which, in turn, harms the local economy, depresses area property values, and worsens the region's chronic water shortage.

    

5. the plan causes environmental destruction. By making the current levees capable of controlling flood flows 35% greater, the plan will destroy many miles of river habitat along the 5,000 acres of the federally-protected Wild & Scenic American River, negatively impacting fish, wildlife, flora, and 2 million visitor-days of recreation along the river and its parkway. Moreover, this plan's failure to protect Sacramento from the "standard project flood" represents tacit acceptance of severe risks to the environment and public health. Flooding in Sacramento would have tremendous negative environmental consequences, including potential overflows of raw sewage from the combined water system, as well as inundation of water treatment facilities and hazardous material sites.

    

6. the plan greatly elevates the chance of downstream flooding beyond Sacramento. The levee improvements in this plan virtually end at Sacramento city limits but the elevated river flows do not. They continue down the Sacramento River channel to be absorbed by the decaying and, in many cases, substandard levee systems in Yolo and Solano Counties, placing their communities at even greater flood risk.

    

7. the plan provides no additional water storage. Although The Bureau of Reclamation has determined that the region has a water deficit in excess of 525,000 acre feet through the year 2030, this plan does not add a drop of new water to the system.