Flood plan would boost water capacity

A plan being discussed this week includes possible changes for some Sutter County features, and the addition of a new one, to improve flood control on the Sacramento and Feather rivers.

Under the state's 2012 Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, the Sutter, Colusa, Tisdale and Fremont weirs and/or bypasses would be widened, and an entirely new bypass for the Feather River below Oroville Dam would be established.

As well, the plan calls for a new setback levee on the Feather River below where it meets the Bear River, more coordinated water releases between Oroville Dam and Bullards Bar Dam and improving levees both around Marysville and in Sutter County.

The draft version of the plan will be discussed as part of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board's Friday meeting in Sacramento.

Mike Inamine, Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency's director of engineering, said he sees the proposals in the report as complementary pieces to the agency's work to upgrade levees in Sutter and Butte counties.

"We understand the alternatives in this report are sort of seen at a formative stage," he said, adding in the portion of the Feather River below Star Bend, local, state and federal agencies are all developing plans to improve flood control. "All these things have to come together."

In the flood board plan, the Sutter Bypass, Colusa Weir and Bypass and Tisdale Weir and Bypass would each be widened by 1,000 feet to increase capacity and lessen the stress on Sacramento River levees to the west.

The Fremont Weir, in southwest Sutter County, would be widened by about a mile for similar reasons. And the plan also suggests a new bypass northwest of Gridley from where the Feather River emerges below Oroville Dam, along what's now the Cherokee Canal and ending in the Butte Basin.

"Initial analyses indicate that a bypass with a capacity of 32,000 cubic feet per second could reduce peak flood elevations along the Feather River and help convey floodflows into the existing bypass system," the report states.

Alicia Kirchner, the planning division chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Sacramento office, said in an email the plan is being reviewed by her agency.

"The corps would need to evaluate specific features (like a bypass expansion) presented in the draft CVFPP before we could endorse or recommend them as part of a federal project," she said in the email.

Once the board formally adopts the plan, according to its introduction, its authors will begin creating financing plans for projects costing an estimated $14 billion to $17 billion within the next 20 to 25 years.

"These financing plans are critical to CVFPP implementation, given the uncertainty in state, federal and local agency budgets and cost-sharing capabilities," the report states. Implementation of the plan's suggestions wouldn't begin until 2017.

The board will review the plan again on Feb. 24, specifically to hear from the public where the board should focus on reviewing the plan before adopting it.

CONTACT Ben van der Meer at bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4786. Find him on Facebook at /ADbvandermeer or on Twitter at @ADbvandermeer.