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Saturday, December 31, 2011 – Daily News FRESNO (AP) — More than half of California's levees do not meet flood- control standards and need up to $17 billion in repairs and investment, officials said in the first statewide flood plan released Friday. The plan, issued by the Department of Water Resources, details the dire status of levees and other infrastructure along the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems. Officials and experts say the state's flood control sys- tem — a piece-meal collec- tion of 14,000 levees and other infrastructure built by farmers and local govern- ments over the last 150 years — is no longer ade- quate. The Central Valley, once a mostly agricultural area that was lightly popu- lated, has experienced rapid development and popula- tion growth. ''The system is based on antiquated technologies, so you have to upgrade it and keep in mind changing societal demands,'' said Jef- frey Mount, professor and founding director of Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. ''Modern flood control is wickedly compli- cated, because it has to take into account a lot of fac- tors.'' Experts say the aging levees, if breached, pose a great threat to life, property and the state's drinking water supplies. Central Val- ley's flood risk ranks among the highest in the nation. While officials have long known the system was neglected and in disrepair, it's the first time they have studied it as a whole, come up with long-term solutions and a priority for invest- ments. More than half of 300 miles of aged urban levees do not meet modern design criteria, according to newly released analysis. And about 60 percent of 1,230 miles of non-urban levees have a high potential for failure from under-seepage, through-seepage, structural instability, and/or erosion. In addition, about half of the 1,016 miles of channels are believed to be inade- quate to handle projected flooding. And two bridges are in need of repairs. About 1 million Califor- nians now live in flood- plains and levees protect an estimated $69 billion in assets, including the state's water supply system, major freeways, agricultural land and the valley's remaining wetland and riparian habi- tat, said Mike Mierzwa, senior engineer in the Cen- tral Valley Flood Protection Office. ''The challenge that we have is that the flood man- agement system in the val- ley is dated and is not func- tioning in ways it was designed,'' Mierzwa said. ''We have people living behind levees which were meant to protect farmland.'' In 2006, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Cal- ifornia's levee system and ordered emergency levee repairs to the 33 most criti- cal spots at a cost of $175 million. That same year, state voters approved nearly $5 billion in bond funds for flood protection projects statewide. Legislators also mandat- ed that the state develop a plan to reduce flood risks and guide the investments of the bond money. The plan calls for $14 billion to $17 billion in repairs and other invest- ments — including the $5 billion in bond funds already approved. Invest- ments would be spread over the next 20 to 25 years. Officials said the money would come from a mixture of federal, state and local sources. They said voters will need to approve more bonds. Most of the money — up to $6 billion — would Counseling Center Giving Families Hope! 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Those include extensive bypass expansion and the construc- tion of a new bypass; major improvements to intake, weir and gate structures; sediment removal projects; urban and rural levee repairs; fish passage improvements and ecosys- tem restoration. —UC Davis professor Jeffrey Mount The plan doesn't recom- mend building new reser- voir storage, which is very expensive. Focusing on other pro- jects beyond levee repairs is good step forward, Mount said. ''There's always the pressure to simply fix the problem, meaning just make the levies taller and stronger. That's the path of least resistance,'' he said. By constructing and strengthening levees, Mount said, the state may actually induce develop- ment and growth behind the levees and hence increase flood risk. Thus the need, he said, to prioritize invest- ments to areas where risk reduction is greatest. Thus far, state officials say they have spent about half of the $5 billion in bond funds on more than 200 projects. 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