Using floodplains and wetlands to reduce flood costs and restore salmon
better for ducks, better for fish and better for farms ……
The Yolo Bypass is an 80 year old flood control project that protects communities in California. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle describes current efforts to restore use of floodplains and wetlands to enhance the effectiveness of the flood control system in the state.
The Knaggs Ranch experiment, Katz said, is designed to show how floodplain and habitat restoration can be accomplished without taking agricultural land out of production.
"We're really talking about a paradigm shift in the way we push water around the landscape," Katz said. "It's going to be much cheaper to invest in a system that incorporates floodplain restoration now than it will be in the future. It will be better for ducks, better for fish and better for farms."
…
The original idea behind the FloodSAFE initiative was to shore up the system of levees in the delta, which have failed 166 times over the past 100 years. The danger of flooding is now worse than ever, according to experts, who point out that the sea level is rising and land in the Central Valley is subsiding.
The state's flood management plan, which could cost as much as $16 billion to fully implement, is expected to include a major expansion of the Yolo Bypass.
"By expanding the bypass we open the door for increased ecosystem restoration while getting the dual benefit of reducing flood risk," said Michael Mierzwa, the supervising engineer and flood policy adviser for the Department of Water Resources. "The caveat that I put on that is that it is going to take decades to implement."
Full article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/MNDK1MEG6S.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1hygPG5EB
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Posted by Anne Wallach Thomas on Friday, December 30, 20111:55AM
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