Levee funding changes may sink some islands
Posted on Mon, Feb. 20, 2006
TIMES WATCHDOGLevee funding changes may sink some islandsBy Kiley RussellCONTRA COSTA TIMES
The New Year's storm that tormented many of the Delta's aged levee systems blasted through the earthen walls protecting little Fay Island, submerging it under 10 feet of water. The privately owned, 115-acre island in San Joaquin County suffered a roughly 65-foot levee break early New Year's Day. "The wind was anywhere from 45 to 60 miles per hour. I have never seen wind like that in this area before and I've been here for 57 years in the Delta," said the island's caretaker, Frank Craffey. "It was just horrifying. The water was spraying over the levees tremendously and just eating them up."
The wind and waves that sank Fay and damaged several other Delta islands are now quiet, but another storm, perhaps more powerful, is brewing in Sacramento as politicians and state water officials contemplate changes to the way levee maintenance districts are funded. So while the immediate effort to pump out and rebuild Fay Island is fraught with complications, its owners -- along with dozens of other landowners and levee district mangers in the Delta -- are also casting a worried eye toward the future. "A couple partners and I bought the island about five years ago. It was in terrible shape. The levees were all torn up," said Paul Edwards, who sits on the board of Reclamation District 2113, the local agency responsible for the island's levees.
"We've been working for the past four or five years to build the levees up to an acceptable state and make it so we could last through a storm like last winter, but we didn't quite get there."
To salvage their investment, Edwards and his partners have embarked on a reclamation project and are still trying to discover how much, if any, state money they can corral. If they can't enlist state assistance -- and state money -- for levee reconstruction and water removal, they will have to shoulder the entire $190,000 bill. Compounding Edwards' troubles is a growing debate in Sacramento among lawmakers and state water officials about whether islands like Fay, which protects little of statewide interest, are worth saving at all.
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