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“Increasingly severe weather systems each season have accelerated the deterioration of the state’s levee system to the point where they are now in danger of failing during the next major rainfall or earthquake. This worsening situation creates conditions of extreme peril to the public and property protected by the levees, to the environment, and to the very foundation of California’s economy.”

– Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a letter to President Bush dated February 27, 2006

Some important informational sites/links for you to check out:

www.water.ca.gov

www.levees.water.ca.gov/

Governor Schwarzenegger’s home page – you can put this into Google and find this site easily, with LOTS of information.

Governor’s Office of Emergency Services – again, type this into Google for the CA Office of Emergency Services.

The Delta Initiative is a multi-year research and planning effort at the University of California – Berkeley, dealing with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region of California. The fate of the Delta is crucial to California’s future – it is the hub of the state’s water supply system, is an irreplaceable habitat for migrating birds and fish, and is the route through which critical infrastructure powers the Bay Areas’s dynamic economy. The Delta is also home to more than half a million people and a large agriculture industry, and is facing dramatic urbanizsation pressure from the Bay Area, Central Valley and Sacramento housing markets.

The Delta is also at extraordinary risk of disaster. Much of the land in the region has subsided below sea level, and is protected only by an aging system of levees. River floods, earthquakes, and climate change all pose grave threats to the levees, the land, and the state’s freshwater supply. A mass failure of the levee system (similar to that which struck New Orleans) could have immense consequences for the economy of the entire state, and even the nation.

The Delta Initiative seeks to understand these pressures and risks, and to explore alternative futures for the Delta that would improve public safety, secure water supply and infrastructure systems, reduce state taxpayer liability, and provide habitat, open space and recreation benefits.

For more information:

http://landscape.ced.berkeley.edu/~delta/

WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) – A national panel has called for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restructure its project selection and decision-making procedures.

The National Academy of Public Administration was commissioned by Congress to conduct an eight-month study of the Corps, with emphasis on how the Corps prioritizes construction projects.

The panel, led by Louisiana State University Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, released its findings Monday.

“The current process does not serve the nation as well as it can,” O’Keefe said. “It does not give enough attention to system performance and weighing risks if systems fail.”

The Corps currently weighs the relative economic value of a project against its actual cost. The panel suggests such a narrow focus is inadequate and should incorporte public safety, environmental consequences and other factors in addition to economic value.

“Human safety should be one of the most important factors in the prioritization process,” O’Keefe said. “Economic benefit alone doesn’t capture the value of projects for which the Corps of Engineers is responsible. The (Hurricane) Katrina and Rita experiences are painful reminders that when systems fail, the consequences are much more than dollars and cents.”

The report is available at www.napawash.org.