Dozens of miles of levees slicing through urban Stockton and rural east San Joaquin County are no longer eligible for federal rehabilitation dollars should a flood occur, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will formally announce today. The ineligible levees are on Bear Creek, Calaveras River, and the Boggs Tract. Kory Hansen / The RecordBy Alex Breitler, Record Staff Writer
23 August 2012

Dozens of miles of levees slicing through urban Stockton and rural east San Joaquin County are no longer eligible for federal rehabilitation dollars should a flood occur, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will formally announce today. That means local agencies would be on the hook for millions of dollars to repair breached levees and continue protecting hundreds of thousands of Stockton residents. The news comes after the corps, which has increased its scrutiny of Central Valley levees since Hurricane Katrina, announced in May that its most recent inspections revealed “unacceptable” conditions on levees along Bear Creek, the Calaveras River, and Mormon Slough. For a time, that finding had no consequence. The promise of federal money to rebuild levees was protected under a temporary agreement between the state and federal governments. That agreement, however, expired in June. “We’re still here to flood fight, we’ll still be there to prevent damage to life and property in the event of a flood,” said Ryan Larson, a civil engineer with the corps. “It’s just the rehabilitation assistance afterward” for which the levees no longer qualify. Local officials were taken by surprise Wednesday. “We knew the (agreement) expired, and we had been asking the state and the corps what this means,” said John Maguire, head of San Joaquin County’s Flood Management Division. “We were never given an answer.” That agreement was to be replaced by the state’s massive new Central Valley flood plan, but the corps says it found that plan to be deficient. So it yanked the eligibility for levee-repair funding. Now local officials basically find themselves caught between the federal and state governments. […] This is not entirely new territory for Stockton. Two stretches of levees are already ineligible, including the levee protecting the Twin Creeks subdivision south of Bear Creek, and the south bank of the Calaveras River. Today’s announcement, however, means many more miles of levee are in the less-than-desirable position of having no federal backing for flood repair, should a disaster occur. In addition to the Bear Creek and Calaveras River systems, the corps yanked eligibility for levees protecting Boggs Tract in south Stockton. “Our levee safety standards have to be as unforgiving as flood waters if we’re going to consistently reduce risk to the growing number of Americans living in flood plains,” Col. Bill Leady, commander of the Corps’ Sacramento district, said in a prepared statement. Corps officials were careful to say that today’s news does not indicate any new, increased risk of flooding. Their decision was based on previously announced inspection results. Those inspections found erosion and caving of the levee banks, and many encroachments built by landowners – ranging from pipes draining farmers’ fields, to patios, steps, and other improvements put in by urban residents. […]

Feds won’t help fix levees if flood hits