2003 September 16 The Sacramento Bee David Whitney
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
New Questions Surface on Raising Sacramento, Calif.-Area Dam

Sep. 16--WASHINGTON--More questions about the cost, safety and security of raising Folsom Dam to give Sacramento its last major component of flood protection are emerging just as a key House committee braces for a showdown over the $219 million project.

Alaska Rep. Don Young, the Republican who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in a Sept. 3 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asked whether adding 7 feet of concrete to the top of the 50-year-old dam would make it unstable in an earthquake.

The Corps of Engineers is rushing to hire a team of consultants to review its studies to determine whether additional analyses are needed -- a process that the corps said is regularly done to ensure that its engineers aren't missing something.

On another front, security officials with the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam, are expected to meet with corps engineers this week to discuss questions about whether a taller dam would be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. That issue came up during a secret assessment recently conducted for the bureau by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the Pentagon.

"If we do go forward with raising the dam, we'll make sure that all those security issues are addressed in the redesign so that it is safe," said Jim Taylor, the corps' spokesman in Sacramento.
The bureau has raised other concerns as well, including whether the corps has a firm handle on the cumulative effect of adding hundreds of tons of concrete to the top of Folsom Dam after having hollowed out its core to add larger gates as part of a separate component of Sacramento flood-control work.

Rep. Robert Matsui, the Sacramento Democrat who is leading the charge in Congress to raise the height of the dam, dismissed the barrage of questions as more last-minute maneuvering orchestrated by advocates of a large multipurpose dam at Auburn to scuttle the Folsom project.
"These are what we expect to happen," Matsui said. "It's another John Doolittle delaying tactic -- or an attempt at a delaying tactic."
But Doolittle, a Republican congressman from Rocklin, said he was unaware of the safety concerns raised by Young and knows nothing about what was determined during the risk-assessment review. While he admits he wants to derail the Folsom project, Doolittle said Sacramento's concern should be whether the project will make it more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.

"I am against this project regardless," Doolittle said. "If it is safe, that's a big argument you've taken away from me. But if it is not safe, this is foolishness."
F.I. "Butch" Hodgkins, executive director of the Sacramento Flood Control Agency, said Young's letter twists the corps' data to reach a false conclusion.
"Someone who does not understand a thing about structures or earthquake engineering has selectively quoted good technical work and then used those quotes to reach conclusions about exorbitant cost increases and catastrophic failures, all for the purpose of preventing a vote on this project," Hodgkins said. "This is a new low in political B.S. for those of us trying to keep Sacramento from flooding."

Matsui and SAFCA believe raising Folsom Dam would be the last major piece of a complex system capable of protecting the city against a storm 50 percent larger than has hit the American River watershed in 3,000 years.

The multiphase project involves strengthening the levees that hold back the American River during a flood, adding bigger outlets to the face of Folsom Dam and, when that's done in a decade or so, raising the dam to add emergency reservoir capacity during the worst floods.

While the final engineering work is being completed on the dam outlets, the levee work is well under way and is running into serious cost overruns. Funding to complete the project will run out soon unless Congress doubles the spending limit to more than $200 million.

The skyrocketing cost of the levee work has given Doolittle ammunition to argue that the total cost of the flood-protection work could approach what it would cost to build a more effective dam at Auburn, which he estimates to be about $1 billion.

Others contend that such a dam probably would cost at least $2.5 billion, and note that it would inundate 40 miles of the American River canyon that is popular with river rafters and other outdoor enthusiasts. Besides, they say, building such a huge project would be an impossible sell to an environmentally sensitive Congress, which twice defeated such proposals in the 1990s.

That debate -- Folsom vs. Auburn -- simmers in the back rooms of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is likely to decide this week whether it will proceed with writing a 2003 water projects bill that Matsui and company hope will authorize both the higher level of levee spending and the Folsom project.

Matsui insisted in an interview that Folsom is not holding up the legislation, and he predicted that if a water bill comes out of Congress this year, it will include the Folsom raise.

"We don't see this as any great problem," Matsui said of the new questions. He said the only uncertainty is whether a bigger national debate over reforming the way the corps operates will scuttle any water projects legislation this year.

But Young, a Northern California native and longtime supporter of an Auburn dam, said in an interview that reaching agreement on Sacramento flood control will determine whether he moves forward with a bill. The committee is tentatively scheduled to meet Wednesday.

Key to a deal, Young suggested, is taking the Folsom project off the table while providing some relief on funding the levee work.

"I'm trying to get a bill because I think it is very important," Young said. "I happen to think John Doolittle is right on the Folsom Dam, but that is up to California. I wish they would make up their minds and quit fighting amongst themselves. Right now it is a battle there, and I'm just trying to say this is a bigger bill. ... If they'll come to an agreement where they'll settle for a little, or not much, then we've got a chance."

Matsui is unlikely to go along with any such deal because he said he thinks there are the votes on the House committee to approve the Folsom project on an amendment likely to be offered by Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, the panel's senior Democrat.

Young may be Doolittle's most powerful ally. Earlier he joined Doolittle in asking for a congressional audit of the levee spending.
In his Sept. 3 letter to Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, commander of the corps, Young said he is now worried that safety problems lurking under Folsom Dam are going to turn it into a similar black hole.

Young based his concern on an analysis in an appendix to a structural design segment of the corps' report on the Folsom project. It suggested that there is a 2-foot layer of "excessive water and softer rock" under the dam's spillway that separates concrete from bedrock. The engineers recommended further study of this interface.

The Bureau of Reclamation also has raised a series of concerns in recent weeks, including whether adding to the dam's height makes it a better target for terrorists. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency recently sent a team to assess Folsom, and its findings are classified.

The Bureau of Reclamation's regional director, Kirk Rodgers, also appealed in a letter for the corps to analyze the combined effect of hollowing the dam for larger gates and adding more concrete to its top.

More detailed analyses "are required in order to fully assess the adequacy of designs for all of the proposed modifications," he wrote.

Complying with the mounting requests for studies, however, would require the corps to depart from its normal practices. Taylor said the corps typically does the kind of study Rodgers and Young are seeking after a project is authorized by Congress and as the agency is finalizing its preconstruction engineering.

According to Doolittle and Young, however, that is too late. Unless Congress knows the answers now, taxpayers could get stuck with the cost of shoring up an unsteady dam, they argue.