Building a new bridge with the Department of Water Resources is a major topic at the Feb. 15 meeting of the Reclamation District  800 Board of Trustees. Photo courtesy of DWR

RIVER VALLEY REGION, CA (MPG) - Could there be anything more rewarding than being one of only four private levee districts nationwide chosen for inclusion in an Army Corps of Engineers pilot study, offering invaluable data without cost? Yes, indeed. What surpasses that is finally receiving some acknowledgment and recognition from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR).

This realization unfolded when the Reclamation District 800 (RD800) Board of Trustees. met on Feb. 15. The conversation revolved around the levee tour held on Feb. 13 so that Corps engineers could inspect the levees and banks on the north side of the Cosumnes River. Top officials from DWR’s Division of Flood Management also went along.

Board President Brian Takemori, Trustee Leland Schneider, along with the district's contracted engineer Patrick Erwin, and the contracted attorney Rebecca Smith, shared an enthusiastic report about the tour's outcome.

 Director Leland Schneider, left, is mentoring the district’s new employee Trevor Dosh.

In other business, Schneider introduced new employee Trevor Dosh, who is the district superintendent patrolling and maintaining the levees. The board also approved a contract with Marsha Holmes, who recently came back from retirement to again serve as the secretary.

Background

RD 800 maintains and repairs 34 miles of privately owned levees along the Cosumnes River between Rancho Murieta and Freeman Road off Dillard Road in Wilton and Freeman Road off Grant Line Road in Sheldon. The funding to maintain the levees at a 10-year flood standard comes from an assessment district that generates only $514,000 a year. The January 2023 storms broke RD800 levees in three locations and caused massive erosion elsewhere. The district borrowed money to make more than $6.5 million in repairs and is currently in the red by $7.475 million.

Levee tour

RD 800 was able to participate in a Corps pilot study after another district in Louisiana dropped out. Over the next 10 years, the Corps plans to put together a national database of all private levees in the nation with an assessment of their conditions and risks.

In addition to taking the Corps engineers on the Feb. 13 tour, Ervin told the board that he  Schneider and Takemori answered many questions about the levees over the next two days. The end result will be a Corps report outlining the deficiencies of the levees with an estimate of what it will take to get them up on par. Ervin said he didn’t know when to expect the report.

Ervin said the best part about the Corps tour was having DWR involved, and he reported talking to Senior Engineer Sterling York about the district’s past relationship with the state agency.  “I told him that I wouldn’t say it was bad blood. There’s just been some cynicism in the district, just because we’ve felt like we have always been left out here on our own.”

Ervin said he and York agreed that there should be a clean slate going forward. “If nothing else comes of it, at least it was building a bridge between us, and DWR having a real understanding of what it has been like out here when the river was at the top,” Ervin said.

Smith agreed that the district’s relationship with DWR has not always been good.

“And, that’s putting it lightly,” Trustee Jack Krautz added.

Smith said the meeting with the DWR folks had been very collaborative and helpful. “I think we need to keep building on that relationship because it was very positive.”

The top DWR official on the tour was Jeremy Arrich, who is the manager of the Division of Flood Management.  Schneider said Arrich approached him during a break and commented to the effect: “I’ve got a whole new respect for your district. We didn’t really understand what went on out here until today,” he said. “DWR will have involvement. All you have to do is ask. We need to get help you guys so it is not just your board members and your employees who are flood-fighting out here.”

Schneider also reported on a conversation with Supervising Engineer Wade Wiley, who runs the DWR inspections from Redding to Bakersfield. He told Schneider he was on the RD800 levee last spring and was seeing it again on the tour. ‘I’m amazed at all the work that you guys got done,” Schneider quoted him saying.

In other DWR conversations, Engineer Alberto De Leon offered to put on a daylong flood fighting class in Spanish for RD800. Another talked about putting all of the RD800 information and photos into the DRW flood fight incident database.

Ervin made the most telling point about the DWR interaction. “Ultimately, we are hoping what comes out of this is some funding from the state,” he said.

As for interactions with the Corps engineers on the tour, Brown and Schneider found the on-the-spot modeling very interesting. Schneider said the river hydrology involved would be very helpful “so we can be ahead of the game when it happens.”

Employees

Schneider introduced the district’s first employee in more than three years. Trevor Dosh is the district’s new superintendent who will maintain and patrol the levees. Sounding far more mature than his 18 years, Dosh reported on his activities after being on the job for a week. One of his major assignments was opening the gates and clearing any impediments from the levee road so that the Corps inspection could take place. Schneider said 12 vehicles went on the tour.

The board also spent a considerable amount of time suggesting and approving purchases such as a chainsaw, a 50-gallon gas tank for the district truck, a toolbox, an iPad, and two new district cell phones, one for Dosh and one for the truck. Schneider also asked him to register for an upcoming safety class. Additionally, the board discussed hiring up to three temporary employees to help him with the initial work of clearing the levees this spring. Dosh is being paid $20 an hour.

The board also approved an employment contract with Marsha Holmes, who will be paid $400 a month to serve as the district’s contracted secretary. She worked for the district for 25 years before retiring five years ago. But at the board’s request, she came back with the understanding she wouldn’t have to handle the bookkeeping. That is being handled by another contracted employee Perla Tzintzun-Garibay.

 Marsha Homes, who came out of retirement to serve as board secretary, interacts with the board.

Even after Holmes was retired, she still answered district calls from county and state agencies and news organizations, especially during the January 2023 storms. That was because her private cell phone was still listed in many databases.

The board voted to reinstitute what had been the district’s official phone number, 916-594-1018, which Holmes will answer.

Other business:

-The board approved spending $17,700 for audits of the years ending in 2021 and 2022. Smith said the other reclamation districts also are having trouble keeping up with their audits because of the difficulty of finding auditors.

-Ervin reported he had completed the last of the paperwork required by FEMA after the January 2023 storms. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

The board’s next meeting will be at 9 a.m. on March 21 at the Wilton Community Center.