🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <lavmkvINN5s7@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> tut@cairo.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) writes:
>
>Auburn Dam is being touted for flood control, but levee improvements
>would be more effective, and cheaper.  Auburn Dam is supposed to be a
>dry dam-- a billion dollars of concrete with no water behind it.

According to various Sacto. Bee articles, the levee improvements
would provide only 105 year protection, not the 200 year protection
that the dam is predicted to provide.  Also, the canyon behind the
dam would be ruined whether or not water is there most of the time;
it only takes one filling to wipe it out.

Why would we need yet another water storage reservoir?
There is no water shortage in Sacramento; we don't even have water
meters.  All of our treated sewage empties into the Delta upstream
of the Aqueduct, so it is 100% recycled down south.

However, the levee improvements *would* cost quite a bit less than the
dam, at least now.  When a 200-year storm hits, the Federal Govenment
will just have to pay out additional hundreds of millions of dollars 
in flood insurance claims without the dam.  Can we live with that?
 
>The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency's consulting engineers report*
>recommends several actions-- upgrading existing flood control levees,
>lowering an existing spillway on Folsom Dam, and making a modest change
>in Folsom flood storage-- to provide real flood control for Sacramento,
>and save taxpayers more than $567 million in dam building costs.

Please explain why a viable alternative that costs less 
and provides better protection would be rejected.  The dam construction
interests are not that powerful.  The HOUSING DEVELOPMENT interests
are.  They want to see various floodplains (such as Natomas) filled
with condominiums.  There's money to be made!

Why don't we just simply not build more housing in floodplains?
Why does Sacramento think that moving more people into the area
improves our quality of life?
-- 
--Dudley McFadden     <demcfadden@ucdavis.edu>