California Breaches Levee to Restore Habitat

The California Department of Water Resources and Ecosystem Investment Partners hold a levee breaching ceremony on Sept. 18, 2024, to celebrate the completion of the Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat Restoration Project in Solano County. Andrew Nixon / California Department of Water Resources

California is breaching a large-scale levee near Sacramento for the first time in 100 years to restore wildlife habitat and provide new flood capacity.

The Department of Water Resources and Ecosystem Investment Partners held a levee breaching ceremony on Sept. 18 to celebrate completing the Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat Restoration and Flood Improvement Project. Nine places on the levee will be breached to create an open-water habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

“Lookout Slough is the biggest environmental restoration project in the Delta in decades. And a critical feature of it is the improved flood protection it provides to surrounding communities,” said Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth in a news release.

The project’s goal is to restore 3,400 acres of habitat for Delta smelt and other fish species and reduce the risk of flooding in the Central Valley. In June 2022, a setback levee over 3 miles long and 25 feet high was built to guarantee flood protection for 100 years with the possibility of allowing sea levels to rise. It paves the way for 26 miles of open tidal channels to restore the native habitat by grading, fill placement, and natural revegetation.

The project also provides over 40,000-acre feet of storage for flooding within the Yolo Bypass, which protects the surrounding area during flood events. In addition, the public will have access to Lookout Slough for recreational activities like wildlife viewing, fishing, and hunting on a non-motorized boat ramp on the north side of the breach.

In 1862, the Great Flood inundated Oregon, Nevada, and California and was known as one of the largest in recorded history in the U.S. West. The flood was the result of a series of atmospheric rivers. San Francisco and the Sacramento Valley were hit hardest, with over 30 inches of rain in the span of two months. Because of that, the state came up with its first flood control plan for the Sacramento Valley in 1880.

In the early 1900s, there was a nationwide push on a federal level to build dams and levees to encourage agriculture. Levees guide water through the Delta and into canals and aqueducts for farmlands across California.

“The deal at that time was, well, you have the beneficial use of the water underneath your feet, and that’s stayed in place all the way to the 80s,” Mark Nakata, the CEO of California United Water Coalition who is also a farmer and small business owner in Fresno and Tulare counties, told The Epoch Times.

But in the 1980s, the state started to prioritize reestablishing natural habitats. In 1993, the Delta smelt was listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. After that there have been more and more efforts to tear down water projects, which were costly.

Nakata believes a better solution would be to dredge the levees and canals to increase the flow and prevent flooding.

“We have to dredge the waterways, okay, so that they can operate the way they were intended to operate, not at 60 percent, not at 50 percent, not 40 percent, but at 100 percent. And you know what? Dredging is a lot cheaper,” said Nakata.

He said the aqueducts and canals have accumulated a lot of silt over the years, so dredging would be the most cost-effective way to maintain them.

He also noted that breaching the levees and flooding the area again to restore the environment can have consequences, like moving less water to Southern California, where people rely upon most of the water that flows down from the north.

“They’re not telling you, well, this is the economic harm that’s going to cause,“ Nakata said. ”Who’s going to pay for that economic harm?”

The project is one of more than 100 ongoing projects in the state’s effort to build more and upgrade infrastructure faster.