California levees to get a wave of cash

The levee system crisscrossing Sacramento and the Central Valley received the biggest financial boost in its long and rickety history when California voters said yes to a $4.1 billion bond measure to strengthen flood control.
The huge infusion of cash should go a long way toward providing more safety to people living behind levees, including residents of Natomas, West Sacramento, the Greenhaven-Pocket neighborhood and other areas of the Sacramento region.
And it is expected to bring a greater level of security to the levee system running through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where the potential combination of an earthquake and crumbling levees could threaten the water supply of millions of Californians.
Known as Proposition 1E, the measure was approved Tuesday by 64 percent of voters statewide. Coupled with another $800 million in flood control dollars that will flow from Proposition 84, a water-related bond measure, it means nearly $5 billion in state funds will be available for flood safety work.
"It's probably the largest investment for flood control ever _ something that's been sorely needed for a long time," said Les Harder, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources. "It was gratifying to see that people across the state recognize the dire need."
Raymond Seed, a civil engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the bond's passage offers California a rare opportunity to attack its flood problems comprehensively.