LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – This week the US Army Corps of Engineers released inspection ratings for six Clear Lake levees, with the county’s Public Works director faulting the Corps for lack of communication and the timeliness of the information.
The Corps’ Sacramento District rated maintenance of two of the levee systems “minimally acceptable” and gave an “unacceptable” maintenance rating to four others. All of the levees are maintained by Lake County Watershed Protection District and the California Department of Water Resources.
All six of the rated levees are located on Middle Creek, in an area slated to be part of a restoration area that eventually will be put back under water.
Supervisor Denise Rushing said there are “just a handful” of occupied homes in the area of the levees. The county has bought many properties there in an effort to advance the Middle Creek Restoration Project.
Scott De Leon, director of Lake County Department of Public Works, said the Corps’ report gives an “unfair and inaccurate” snapshot of the condition of the levees, located north of the confluence of Middle and Scotts creeks.
He said he had a number of concerns about the report. “We didn’t know anything about the inspections and frankly we didn’t know anything about the results” until earlier this month.
There also is the matter of the results having been withheld from the county through two flooding seasons, said De Leon.
The Corps said that when the maintenance problems have been corrected, Lake County may request a reinspection of the levee systems, and regain active status in the Corps’ levee program if they’ve been adequately addressed.
De Leon said he’s already requested that the levees ruled “unacceptable” be reinspected. “It could take several months for them to schedule reinspection,” he said.
The same levees have been inspected by the California Department of Water Resources and have had passing inspections and no problems since 2011, said De Leon.
In 2007, the US Army Corps of Engineers had listed one of the Middle Creek levees as having been maintained at an unacceptable level based on an inspection done two years before, as Lake County News has reported. Trees, vegetation and gravel had been listed as issues, and had been addressed by the time the rating was released.
The Corps said its inspection findings determine levee systems’ continued eligibility for its rehabilitation and inspection program. The agency has authority to provide federal assistance for flood fighting and repairing levees damaged by floods or storms.
The main issue for the county, said De Leon, is that if there was to be a flood or severe storm before the reinspection – which he said is unlikely to happen – the county would not be eligible for federal funds for repair and rehabilitation of the levees because of the unacceptable rating.
The Corps’ Sacramento District conducted routine inspection of the six levee systems June 28-29, 2011.
An April 4 letter from De Leon to Col. William Leady, the Corps’ district commander, said the county was first notified by phone of the findings on March 21, the day before the final reports were presented to the Central Valley Flood Protection Board March 22. The Corps said it presented the findings to Lake County on April 2 for review.
“The Central Valley Flood Protection Board, Department of Water Resources and Lake County are continuing to work collaboratively to resolve encroachment and maintenance issues with a goal of achieving an acceptable rating on all the levee systems,” said Len Marino, chief engineer for the Central Valley Flood Protection Board.
Ahead of the Corps’ public release of the results this week, county staff briefed the Board of Supervisors.
The levees, said De Leon, actually were designed and built in the 1940s and 1950s by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Corps’ report said the most serious deficiencies were encroachments. Unacceptable vegetation was noted during the inspections, but in none of the six systems did vegetation result in an overall unacceptable rating. There also were issues with culverts and pipes, and pump station records.
De Leon said a number of issues the Corps identified are things that either were built as part of original construction, including encroachments, or things that are “just plain silly.”
Regarding the latter, De Leon said some of the levees have culverts that go through them. One of the culverts has a flap gate on it, and a stick was found in the gate causing it not to close completely. That was written up in the report.
“That’s one of the things that helped take our levees out of our status,” he said.
By the time a county staffer went out to check the levee, that stick was gone. Had the county been included in the inspections, De Leon said those smaller issues could have been immediately fixed.
“It’s not a very accurate evaluation of the levee,” he said.
Another matter related to vegetation on the levees. De Leon said the county hires a contractor to mow the levees every year. Had they been notified of the inspection, mowing could have been moved up. As it was, the inspection said the pipes in the levees couldn’t be tracked because of the vegetation growth.
“My staff knows exactly where those pipes go,” said De Leon. “Had we been involved we could have answered a lot of questions and resolved a bunch of the issues.”
The Corps said it will continue to provide flood fighting assistance for all six levee systems, regardless of their status.
The map below shows the levees in question. Levees deemed to be in “unacceptable” condition are Middle Creek U1 left bank, Middle Creek U1 north, Middle Creek U1 and U5, Middle Creek U2 and U3. In “minimally acceptable” condition are Middle Creek U1 south and Middle Creek U2 north.
“We’ve got to get these levees back into an active status,” said De Leon. “We intend to have everything done well before the next flood season.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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