Living below Sea Level
Tammy Martinez looked around her home set in the sweeping flatlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and felt a buzz of pleasure. It was roomy, tasteful, and best of all, brand new. After the police helicopters and car chases near her family's old home in the city of Pittsburg, 15 miles to the west, she relished the tranquility of the Summer Lake community, which was built in 2006 just east of Oakley, in the watery region at the confluence of California's two biggest rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin.
Martinez, 38, would still easily get to her job as a bus driver at Tri Delta Transit in Antioch. Her husband, Roderich, would have a 40-mile commute to Richmond Sanitary District in the East Bay-but that was a small price to pay considering what they now had. She stepped out the back door with her two kids-to gaze at the sky, open fields beyond the houses and, oddly, an awful lot of sand in the ground . . . as though this had once been the bottom of a lake.
The Martinez family is one among thousands who have bought new homes in residential developments constructed on subsided diked lands in the 1,153-square-mile delta where the rivers meet and flow into San Francisco Bay. Many of these homes are on former wetlands, five feet or more below sea level.
Tammy Martinez knew about New Orleans, of course. She had also heard a lot from the Shea Homes sales agents about the strong four-mile levee that was built last year in a circle around the Summer Lake community. She wasn't worried--even though her own home is five feet below sea level.
"We feel safe here," she said. "Everything is inspected. I don't think they would allow you to live in their community if it wasn't safe. We have a sports club and a canoe club. We love it here."
The Martinez's home is on the Hotchkiss Tract, one of 57 manmade islands surrounded by levees that were built a century or so ago to turn tidal marshlands into farmland. Using picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows, farmers, former miners, and Chinese laborers constructed 1,100 miles of levees to protect fields of rich peat soil where they planted corn, asparagus, sugar beets, pears, rice, and other crops. Over the years, the peat soil dried and settled. Levees built at five feet were eventually raised as high as 30 feet as the ground kept sinking. Now the Delta is a maze of deep basins and sunken tracts surrounded by earthen dikes. In NASA satellite photos, it looks like a colorful plate of spaghetti. In places where Delta farmland is 25 feet below sea level the islands are actually holes--some of them deeper than San Francisco Bay.
That the Delta is a disaster waiting to happen has been widely acknowledged for a long time. Since 1900, Delta levees have broken 162 times and flooded more than 250,000 acres. Calls for action became more urgent after Hurricane Katrina tore apart the levees in New Orleans and decimated illusions that the laws of nature and physics could be thwarted by piles of dirt and rock. It was not reassuring that the New Orleans levees were built to a higher standard than most of the aging levees in California's Delta.
More than half a million people reside in the triangular Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Many more are being drawn in by the relatively inexpensive homes being built there, within an hour's drive (assuming reasonable freeway flow) from the major population centers of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.
"In Walnut Creek you'd be paying a million dollars. Here you pay half," said Nicholas Ramirez, 32, who was working on his truck on a hot day in June, but put down his tools to chat with a stranger. He bought a two-story home at Summer Lake a year ago for $600,000 and moved in from Antioch, where he had lived most of his life, to get away from the noise and congestion. With a 10-year-old daughter and a young fiancée, he wanted a fresh beginning.
"I like that it's quiet here," he said, gazing down the street of picture-perfect houses backed by giant power lines and blue hills. "There's a lot of family people here, a lot of children for my daughter to play with, and not too many people-notice I say not too many people-speeding through here as though it's The Fast and the Furious."
Ramirez admitted he "could have done better" checking out the flood threat before buying, but added that most home buyers probably don't probe too deeply. "I think it's mainly because everybody has their own problems and their own concerns with themselves. So until it's actually affecting you, you just wipe it off your shoulder," he said, shrugging. Like the Martinez family, the Ramirezes live five feet below sea level.
The Odds Are Scary
"That, in your own backyard there, is the scariest place after New Orleans," said Nicholas Pinter, a geology professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in a post-Katrina interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "In California there seems to be large-scale neglect of those levee systems."
The levees are vulnerable to failure from earthquakes, heavy storms, further subsidence, seepage, erosion, and burrowing by beavers and muskrats, not to mention the threat of flooding as global warming raises sea levels and accelerates seasonal melting of the Sierra snowpack. Geologist Jeff Mount, at U.C. Davis, and Bob Twiss, a levee expert at U.C. Berkeley, estimated that there is a 60 percent chance of multiple, simultaneous levee failures due to an earthquake or flood over the next 50 years. The result could be destroyed homes, roads jammed with panic-stricken residents, disrupted water supplies to much of California, and loss of lives.
John Cain, director of restoration programs at the San Francisco-based nonprofit Natural Heritage Institute and co-author of Re-envisioning the Delta, a report produced by U.C. Berkeley's Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, said in a recent interview that residential areas being built on the fringe of the Delta are on average five feet below sea level. In the winter flood season, water can rise more than 10 feet above the base of these homes. Many of the levees the residents rely on for protection are 10- to 30-foot-high unengineered mounds of dirt.
"I think it's incredibly irresponsible and misguided to develop on deep floodplains," Cain said. "We're not talking about people's living room carpets getting wet every few years. We're talking about whole subdivisions, with houses close together, being inundated up to their eaves. And the odds of that happening are really quite high." David Mraz, Delta-Suisun Marsh chief flood manager at the California Department of Water Resources, said in a telephone interview that there is undoubtedly cause for concern. He said only about 40 percent of the Delta's levees meet federal standards, though many of the poorer levees are in agricultural, not residential, areas. He also believes that even the federal standard is inadequate today.
"We have a very extensive levee system and . . . it's a problem just waiting to happen," he said. "The department's pushing for a higher (levee) standard."
Nearby neighbor David Mariscal does worry. He moved in from Brentwood four years ago to be closer to his maintenance job at the Bethel Island golf course. He said he saves on gas and enjoys the friendly community. On a hot day, his home feels serene, standing under tall poplars, amongst potted flowers, patio tables, and pickup trucks. But he said, pointing south, "Look. You come over that bridge. Look how low we are, below the water. And you start thinking about it . . . we're like a sunken island. The only way out of here is over that bridge."
Mariscal hopes that government officials look after the levees sufficiently. Local reclamation districts are largely responsible for maintaining and repairing the levees, with support from the State. Mariscal knows only too well that money is always short, so he revealed his own evacuation plan. "Climb the highest tree," he said, laughing. "There's not an easy way to get out." After the New Orleans fiasco, this was a point brought home to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor toured the Delta by helicopter, declared a levee emergency, and in 2006 pushed through a $5-billion flood protection bond that included $3 billion to improve levees.
To ensure that all levees are safe, however, three times that amount is needed, said David Mraz at the Department of Water Resources.
Should a multi-levee failure occur, the disaster would affect all of California. In Re-envisioning the Delta, U.C. Berkeley engineering professor Raymond Seed estimated that any disaster that caused more than ten to 12 levees to fail could knock out the water supply for two of every three Californians for more than a year. Because the Delta is a basin, salt water from San Francisco Bay would be sucked into it, ruining the water quality and stopping the flow of water south.
Earthquakes are a major threat. The Department of Water Resources reported in 2005 that a 6.5-magnitude earthquake in the Delta region--bigger than the 1966 Donner Pass temblor that registered 6.0 on the Richter scale and swayed Sacramento buildings, but less severe than the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which measured at 7.1--could damage more than 30 levees and cause massive flooding. With six major faults nearby, officials are worried. The United States Geological Survey estimates there is a 62 percent probability of a 6.7 or greater magnitude earthquake in the nearby Bay Area in the next 25 years.
A Cheerful Plea of Insanity
Even these statistics seem to bounce off many Delta denizens. Bonnie Brown, 57, a former bartender who has been living in a houseboat on the Middle River in the center of the Delta for 12 years with her dog and five cats, found her last flood experience about five years ago "very exciting." She said, "The water was just rushing. I mean it was just rushing, fast, fast, fast. I didn't know if I was going to go off my pylons. That would have been a problem."
The boat did not break loose then, and Brown's biggest concern now is the heavy "wave boats" that tear down the river creating large waves for water skiers to jump over. "You get that big three-foot roller coming in. It just rolls and rolls and rolls. It breaks white water on the shore, and it just washes out the levee," she said.
Brown said she originally came from Reno to help a friend restore his boat. She loved the peace and quiet, and bought her own houseboat, where she now gardens, does stained glass art, and entertains her two grandchildren. Sure, the flood danger is real, she said, but she's not budging. "I guess you just have to be crazier than they are," she said, smiling and indicating the world at large around her.
This cheerful plea of insanity is not uncommon for old-time residents. Newcomers seem more bemused. Robert Guinan, who bought a house in Mossdale Landing, a new 2,300-home development just east of Lathrop in the southern Delta, laughs at his own rashness. He not only bought in an area protected by old levees, but got in at the top of the housing market prices. After 20 years of living "all over" the East Bay, the 43-year-old government employee moved to Mossdale Landing two years ago with his wife and three children. At the time he felt his investment was solid. As his mother-in-law was also moving to Mossdale, he got a free nanny, too.
These days he sits on his front porch looking at the grand, empty houses for sale around him. The possibility of a flood is only one of the spooks in his life. With the Central Valley property market having swung from boom to slump, as elsewhere, he has lost hope of a quick profit on his home.
"We were hoping to put our kids through college with the profit (from the house). It didn't turn out that way. These are a bunch of white elephants now," he laughed wryly.
Guinan said he had been aware the Delta was prone to flooding, but when it came to discussing the final details with the sales agent, the discussion went like this: "That's just one of those things. Don't worry, there's only a hundred pages to sign. Just sign this page and move along. That doesn't mean anything. Just keep signing. Sign your life away." Guinan laughed again, throwing his hands up. "I was aware of it. But life is a risk. It's like driving to the Bay Area every day. You take a risk."
He remembers seeing the giant 1997 flood in the Delta on television. More than 30 levees were breached after heavy winter rains and a substantial snowmelt in the Sierra. Thousands of acres of farmland and hundreds of homes were inundated, with the worst flooding along a 15-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River, north of where it intersects with Interstate Highway 5. Nine people died. But it was television, Guinan said. It didn't hit home that this could happen to him.
"It's foolish actually," he said. "I haven't seen the flood, only heard about it. If I'd seen it, I would be more apt to say, 'Forget it.' I wouldn't move out here."
Wanting to get into a new home as cheaply as possible, he didn't buy flood insurance. And because Mossdale is officially outside of the Delta flood-zone map, he is not required to. But that could change. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is redrawing the flood-zone map, which in some places is 25 years out of date. City and county officials are scrambling to provide proof that their levees meet the so-called federal 100-year standard. If they don't, the areas behind those levees will be brought within the official flood zone, and homeowners with federally backed mortgages (most mortgages are federally insured, by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae) will be required by federal rules to buy flood insurance. At Mossdale Landing, the age of the levees and the new FEMA requirement for better-engineered levees casts doubt on the community's future.
The City of Lathrop, which approved the Mossdale development, is working on a submission to provide proof to FEMA that its levees are up to scratch. FEMA spokesman Frank Mansell said the agency expects to present local authorities with the preliminary version of an updated flood zone map this autumn.
Often home buyers who are told their homes are behind a levee built to a standard known as the "100-year levee" feel comforted, thinking the levee was built to withstand floods for at least a hundred years. In fact, the standard means that in any year there is a one-in-a-hundred chance of a flood big enough to breach the levee. FEMA described the 1997 flood as a "typical" 100-year flood, according to the Stockton Record. Re-envisioning the Delta says that taking into account all residual risks (such as the once-in-200- and once-in-300-year floods), there is a 26 percent chance that over the life of a 30-year mortgage a house protected by a 100-year levee will be inundated by a flood.
That calculation rattles Saphon Hok, a young research scientist who bought a home at Mossdale Landing two years ago. He was not pleased to learn that if FEMA puts Mossdale within the flood zone, he and other local homeowners with federally backed mortgages will be required to buy flood insurance. Flood insurance, which only provides home coverage to a maximum of $250,000, can cost $1,400 to $4,600 a year, according to FEMA. Being in the flood zone could also affect a home's value.
"My wife and I are here for the long term, so we bought a house to live in, not get a return," Hok said. "But I would be concerned if we have to pay extra money for insurance."
Hok moved to Mossdale because he and his wife could not afford to buy in Livermore, where he got a job after graduating from U.C. Davis. Having almost drowned in a flood in Cambodia when he was five years old (his sister plucked him out), he is conscious of the power of large bodies of water. Before buying, he was aware the Delta was vulnerable to flooding, but, he said with a frown, "We took the risk anyway. And let us assume there won't be any flooding in our lifetime."
Although Mossdale has not flooded seriously to date, it is across the San Joaquin River from land flooded in 1997. That giant flood exposed seepage problems in the levee protecting the Mossdale community. In 2002, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrote to the Lathrop City Council expressing concern at the plan to build homes in Mossdale. The Corps asked for new drains and new engineering work to bring the levee to a higher standard. Lathrop fixed the drains. But as for the engineering work, the Council merely replied that the levee met the federal 100-year standard (albeit from 1989) and left it at that.
John Cain, of the Natural Heritage Institute, said plans for another 11,000 homes in a development called River Islands just across the San Joaquin River could leave Mossdale even more vulnerable. River Islands will be protected by "super levees" along the river. Cain said this could increase the pressure on Mossdale's aging levees on the other side if the river floods. Lathrop City Council spokesman Mike Esau commented, "Our experts say to their knowledge [the River Islands levees] do not appear to represent a threat at all."
Council spokesman Esau and Bruce Myers, a vice president with Mossdale's master developer, Pacific Union Homes, both said in telephone interviews that the levees and the project met all the required standards when the development was approved by Lathrop.
All of this debate was news to Matt Kan, who was peacefully fishing on the river, just over the levee from his Mossdale home on a sunny day in early June. Putting down his rod, Kan said a flood would "be a disaster" for him. He explained that he and his family, including two children, live with relatives during the week in San Jose, where he works as an engineering manager. They could not afford their own home in San Jose, so they bought in Mossdale and stay there each weekend. It is great for the kids, he said.
"It's a place for them to grow. Everything here is brand new. The school is new. The neighborhood is brand new. People are brand new. It's a way of looking at a fresh start for my family and myself," he said.
Kan's aspirations are shared by thousands of Bay Area families, some of whom could also make their way to the Delta looking for their dream homes, if developers continue to get their way. A growing torrent of protest from scientists, environmentalists, bureaucrats, and some politicians is starting to counteract the fierce lobbying of major developers. Demographer Hans Johnson of the Public Policy Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit economic, political, and social research organization, projects that the population of the five counties that share wedges of the Delta will more than double, to 7.5 million, by 2050 if restraints on growth are not put in place. Already, tens of thousands of new homes are proposed for the Delta region.
Governor Schwarzenegger hopes to curb this growth until the State can be sure the levees are secure. His office is circulating a proposal to require new housing projects in high-risk areas to meet tougher flood-risk criteria. Adam Mendelsohn, the Governor's communications director, told the Sacramento Bee in June that the Governor does not want to shut down construction in the state, and "everything is being debated." Any bill is likely to face fierce opposition from major developers, who also happen to be big donors to legislators' coffers.
Meanwhile, Kan says he's planning to give up some of his fishing time to check out the flood risks. He also aims to finally get around to looking for flood insurance.
"But right now, we'll just take it as it is," he said, picking up his rod. "Hopefully it doesn't happen. Hopefully they fix the levees."
Shirley Skeel, a frequent contributer to Coast & Ocean, is a radio and print reporter who recently moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Seattle area.
