So, last week FEMA made the very unexpected, startling, and downright stunning (ahem) announcement that the Natomas area was not safe from flooding. The federal agency is calling the area a “flood hazard zone,” which could end up halting the somewhat-mindboggling pace of construction there.
This news did not seem all that surprising to me (and a lot of other people), but apparently it did come as a shock to some Sacramento leaders. On January 16, 2008, the Sacramento Bee noted that “The designation was greeted with anger and shock by Sacramento city officials who have supported bold levee repair plans but oppose restrictions on building.” The Bee quoted City Manager Ray Kerridge as saying, ”I’m totally outraged…I don’t know how the federal government can do this to this city.” Similarly, the Bee quoted Mayor Heather Fargo as follows: ”I am very frustrated and very angry with the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA because Sacramento has really become the poster child of what to do right in flood protection.”
When I first moved to Sacramento, there was little development between downtown Sacramento and the airport. Arco Arena stood by itself, a large, bland building plunked awkwardly in a field. North Natomas was merely a twinkle in some developers’ eyes at the time, although its predecessor, Natomas, was already there. It doesn’t take long, once here, to learn about the floods that have historically affected Sacramento and its growth. We’re surrounded by rivers–part of what made this area appealing to Sutter, who got here around 1840, and other early settlers.
As rivers tend to do, Sacramento’s rivers have repeatedly overrun their banks into the surrounding area, which has been a somewhat pesky issue for our fair citizenry over the years…in fact, there’s a handy timeline about flooding and flood issues at: http://www.safca.org/floodRisk/index.html (This is the SAFCA–Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency–website. This will be important in a sec. Bear with me.)
The Bee’s 1/16/08 article summed up the facts nicely, noting that, “Sacramento is considered the urban area most vulnerable to catastrophic flooding in the nation.”
Okay, so given that Sacramento’s flooding has not exactly been a secret for, oh, about 150 years…it seems a bit disingenuous to me that our city leaders are expressing outrage, particularly outrage at the feds for saying, essentially, ”You shouldn’t build here because it’s dangerous and people could die.”
What they’re really pissed about, though, appears to be the revenue the city will lose if construction doesn’t go forward. (Again quoting the 1/16/08 article from the Bee, ”North Natomas today accounts for 47 percent of the development in the city.”)
Even more appalling is that it’s not like they didn’t see this coming. There’s plenty of evidence and, just as a small example, the Bee reported the following on February 16, 2006 (yes, two years ago):
“ New engineering studies indicate Natomas may not have the minimal 100-year level of flood protection that marked the safety threshold for opening the area to widespread development less than a decade ago.
“The sobering news, which will be publicly discussed at a meeting this afternoon of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, has been quietly circulating among local politicians and flood control experts.
“ ’It’s a combination of disbelief, dismay, frustration and a little bit of anger,’ said Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, who sits on the flood control agency board. ‘We may not have the 100-year level of protection that we had thought, that we had been told.’ ” (emphasis added)
So, just to recap:
1. Sacramento lies in a floodplain and has been dealing with flooding for the entire 150+ years of its existence. (The native Americans–Miwok and Maidu–who were here first were apparently smart enough to note the seasonal flooding of the river and plan their housing accordingly for the several thousand years preceding Sacramento’s founding.)
2. Our mayor sits on the SAFCA board, which was aware of the pending FEMA decision in early 2006 (if not long before).
3. The city repeatedly has made decisions to allow growth and development in an area that is patently not safe for people to live and work. Even when faced with the blatant evidence of what happens when cities build in floodplains (“Hi! My name’s Katrina! What’s yours?”), the city is still pushing to keep the construction going.
4. Not only are we allowing growth in that area, but the immediate health of our city’s economy is in jeopardy if we can’t continue building houses where houses should not be.
Oh. Come. On.
Really, the people who should be (and likely are) outraged are all the people who bought new homes or moved their businesses to the area after being assured time and again that their levees were safe. (Don’t get me started on caveat emptor…)
However, this is not the point of my post, believe it or not. My point is actually related to some other news that recently appeared in the Bee (January 11, 2008): “Fargo said in December the City Council passed two of her long-term goals for Sacramento: a sustainability master plan to reduce the city’s energy use and carbon emissions and a green building program to promote sustainable, private development.”
And this is my actual point: If we are truly trying to become a “sustainable city”–something our mayor reportedly wants to do–then it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to base our economy on the need for continual growth…and not just growth, but sprawl in an area that really shouldn’t have buildings on it. I mean, if you have to continually grow to keep the economy moving, that by its very definition is unsustainable. Is allowing greed to overcome common sense sustainable? Is building more homes and levees in a floodplain sustainable? Is putting more people in new suburbs away from the city center going to help us reduce carbon emissions? In the words of Mayor Fargo, I too am feeling “combination of disbelief, dismay, frustration and a little bit of anger.”
This is not to say I agree or disagree with the Corps and FEMA’s decision–frankly, I don’t have enough information and I’m not a levee engineer. The point here is, we keep putting people in a place that belongs to the river. The more people we put there, the more we’ll have to spend to protect those people and their property. And the more beholden we’ll be to changing federal safety standards. And I doubt if anyone, except maybe a handful of people who understand these things, knows if those levees will actually protect us in the long run anyway.
