Engineer: California Delta problems ‘the worst damn mess I’ve ever seen’
By Mike Taugher, Contra Costa Times
Posted: 01/19/2011 04:05:56 PM PST Bob Bea has investigated such high-profile disasters as the Exxon Valdez spill, the Deepwater Horizon blast, Hurricane Katrina and the space shuttle Columbia, which exploded in 2003. But the UC engineer and associate director of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM) says the problems looming in the Delta dwarf the others because of the vulnerability of levees and the threat that poses to drinking water, power, transportation and other infrastructure. “It’s the worst damn mess I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty bad ones,” Bea told a Contra Costa water task force in Pleasant Hill on Wednesday. The problem is not just the conflict between the Delta’s ecosystem and the demand for water. It is flood safety and the risks that levee failure poses to a web of aqueducts, power lines, telecommunications, highways and rail lines. The levees and other infrastructure are getting older, the risks are getting larger and no one seems to know how to untangle the “Gordian knot.” “We’ve got this infrastructure that is powering a very critical economic engine,” Bea said, adding that the Delta is on a “roadmap to disaster.” … The risk of flooding, he contends, is great. And like New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, Delta experts know about the problems while little is getting done to address them. There are two basic ways to cope, Bea said. California can adopt a “stand and fight” approach to maintain and repair levees or it can adopt a “strategic retreat” in which highways, railroads, aqueducts and power lines are gradually moved out of harm’s way. When the Delta’s bowl-like islands are flooded, perhaps they could be left that way. …
