By Bob Walsh
The Middle River bridge at Highway 4 to Victoria Island west of Stockton
There is a levee that is in the
process of failing. It is west of here, along Hwy 4 at Victoria
Island. This is farm land with pretty much zero population but if the
levee goes completely it could drown Hwy 14, a major commute route into
the bay area as well as bugger up the water supply to Contra Costa
County.
In the last few
days the levee owner has put about $1 million into emergency repairs and
now wants the state to kick down. Many of these levees are over 100
years old and were not engineered to begin with. Also many of them have
had indifferent maintenance by underfunded reclamation agencies, though
I do not know that this is the case with this particular levee. The
current issue is dumped about 6,000 gallons per minute into Victoria
Island. Water moving thru the levee just takes more material with it
which makes the opening bigger which makes more water flow, etc. etc.
I
hope it doesn't get too interesting out that way. I am at 39 feet
above mean sea level so I am not much worried personally, and I have
flood insurance anyway. The traffic disruption however would be a
bitch.
1 comment:
It IS a reclamation district that owns the levee and the county has declared a state of emergency in the immediate area.
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