CA's 5th Congressional District: Clockwise from Left: Tower Bridge, downtown Sacramento, Old Sacramento Waterfront, California State Capitol, Crest Theatre, & the UC Davis Medical Center
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Planning for the Future
Investing in Sacramento’s Flood Protection
 
The city of Sacramento, situated at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, faces a constant threat of flooding.  It is critical that there is a continued investment in efforts to minimize Sacramento’s risk of flooding. Ensuring Sacramento has the necessary level of flood protection is Congresswoman Matsui’s highest priority.  She works closely with Sacramento’s flood control partners – the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, CA Department of Water Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation – to move the city’s flood control work forward.
 
As the nation saw on their televisions and in the papers, the trail of destruction Hurricane Katrina left in her wake demonstrated the importance of investing in flood protection.  This includes examining, maintaining and strengthening our levee and dam system.  The cost to minimize the risk of these events is invaluable, because the cost of the aftermath is far too high.  With the major floods of 1986 and 1987, Sacramento experienced this first hand, when the city came close to disaster.  
 
And Sacramento heeded these wake-up calls.  In constant coordination with the federal, state and local partners, Sacramento has made an investment in a number of flood-control projects.  Through a series of projects including Common Features, the North Area Local Project, and Sacramento County Streams levees are being built or strengthened to ensure they are able to do their job of protecting the city.  Because of projects like the improvements to Folsom Dam, Sacramento is on-track to more than double its level of flood protection and bring it in line with the level of protection enjoyed by other major river cities. 
 
Sacramentans have known that attaining the necessary flood protection for the city would be a long-term cooperative effort; the cost developments for the Folsom Modifications project, is just such a challenge.  When the cost increase announcement was made mid-2005, it seemed Sacramento’s flood control would be in a holding pattern. However, because of the cooperative effort of all of Sacramento’s flood control partners, significant work has been done in this short period.  By working together to look at alternatives; it seems Sacramento has not lost time on increasing our level of flood protection. The auxiliary spillway alternative will likely result in the largest flood control and dam safety collaboration ever undertaken. 
 
Every year Congresswoman Matsui advocates that federal dollars be spent on maintaining and improving Sacramento flood control efforts.  And for 2006, the Congresswoman secured record funding for Sacramento’s flood control projects – nearly $40 million.
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Recent Actions MORE
  • Folsom Dam Modifications
  • Folsom Dam Raise
  • American River Common Features
  • Sacramento River Bank Protection
  • South Sacramento Streams


Read the Sacramento Bee flood control series “Tempting Fate


For more information on Sacramento flood control, please visit Sacramento’s Flood Control Partners

CA Dept of Water ResourcesBureau of ReclamationUS Army Corps of EngineersSAFCO