How California Prepares for Floods
By R. L. Jones, Deputy State Engineer in Charge of Flood Control and Reclamation.
THE State of California has materially increased its direct interest and activity in the maintenance of flood control works in the Sacramento Valley, where, in a large region of the state, a comprehensive system of flood protection is an accomplished fact. This has been brought about
R.L. Jones.
in connection with the revised flood control project plan, and the recent legislation of the state and the United States, in which the financial participation of both governments in the project has been substantially increased. The assumption of responsibility by the state, for a limited period, for the maintenance of flood control works, is a part of an active program of the state government for relieving the financial difficulties of the land-owners within the project. It looks toward the liquidation of the large outstanding indebtedness, which has deeply involved the lands for a number of years.
Legislation and Appropriations.
As a matter of information, the arrangement being comparatively new, the details of the state legislation and appropriations in respect to this maintenance are set out rather fully below.
The Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District includes the lands in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys subject to inundation by flood waters and was created by the legislature in 1913. In 1927 the legislature, by the enactment of chapter 774, directed that the operation and maintenance of certain units or portions of the flood control works within the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District in the Sacramento Valley shall be under the direction and control of the Department of Public Works and that the cost of such operation, control and maintenance shall be defrayed by the state. The act was amended slightly in chapter 387, Statutes of 1929, which provides that this arrangement shall continue for eight years, or until August 14, 1937.
The flood control works specifically placed in charge of the Department of Public Works are as follows :
(1) The east levee of the Sutter Bypass north of Nelson Slough.
(2) The levees and ehaunels of the Wadsworth Canal. the intercepting canals draining into the same, and all structures incidental thereto.
(3) The collecting canals, sumps, pumps and structures of the drainage system of Project No. 6 east of the Sutter By-pass,
(4) The by-pass channels of the Butte Slough By-pass, the Sutter By-pass, the Tisdale By-pass, the Yolo By-pass, and the Sacramento By-pass with all cuts, canals, bridges, dams, and other structures and improvements contained therein and in the borrow pits thereof.
(5) The levees of the Sacramento By-pass.
(6) The channels and the overflow channels of the Sacramento River and its tributaries within the Sacramento and San Joacjuin Drainage District. (7) The Sacramento River outlet enlargement project below Cache Slough to the extent of the state's liability therefor.
These acts further state:
The Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District and the Reclamation Board and the members thereof, during said period, are hereby relieved of all responsibility or liability for the operation or maintenance
Levee revetment of quarry rock.
of all levees, overflow channels, by-passes, weirs, cuts, canals, pumps, drainage ditches, sumps, bridges, basins, or other flood control works within or belonging to the Sacramento and San .Joaquin Drainage District,
The passage of this law places upon the Department of Public Works the entire responsibility, so far as the state is concerned, for the maintenance of the physical works of flood control. It imposes upon the Department the duty of maintaining and operating
