Levee Systems Face Looming Financial Crisis

[The Straight Story]

Levee Systems Face Looming Financial Crisis
Written for the web by Elizabeth Bishop, Internet News Producer


The agencies that oversee the levees in California's flood-prone central valley are on the brink of financial crisis, according to an investigative report.

An investigation by The Sacramento Bee found that money problems are so bad basic maintenance is at risk.

The newspaper looked over a year's worth of financial audits for 73 levee districts between Butte City in the north and Visalia in the south. It found that 33 of the districts ended the year in a deficit, coming up $133,839 short on average.

The Bee/i> also discovered many levee districts are using their the few assets they have to perform basic maintenance in order to protect cities and towns from flooding. It also found only a third of the districts have enough cash in reserve to cover a year's operating expenses.

http://www.kxtv.com/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=14868

[phantom power]

1. I imagine that this is just one of...

a thousand symptoms of the basic fact that our state and federal governments are essentially bankrupt.

[XemaSab]

2. The California state government is bankrupt by design

If you keep increasing spending, but refuse to raise taxes, you will end up in the red.

None of our politicians are willing to do what needs to be done: raise taxes.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Sheeesh

I live a few blocks from the Calaveras Fault, between the Calaveras Fault and the San Andreas Fault, and in the Guadalupe River-Coyote Creek-Alviso Flood Plain.

Oh well - lived in New Orleans and in the Lake Ontario-Lake Erie Snow Belt -- and I've been well trained by Dr. Frannie and Dr. Earl.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. Are you aware...

...that a large part of LA's water supply originates in the delta, where it is protected from salt water by old (and I mean OLD) levees? Flooding won't be the only problem if the Calaveras or Hayward-Rogers Creek fault system decides it's time to go.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. I am well aware - I am an "NGO Emergency Responder"

Note my avatar (the new, non-denominational, non-sectarian, secular Red Crystal of the Old Red Cross)--