Ari Parker’s mother, who passed away earlier this year at 100 years old, often asked her daughter the same question Pajaro and Watsonville residents have asked since the 1950s: Is the levee replaced?
Parker, a Watsonville City Council member, represents the northeast corner of the city near where the Salsipuedes and Corralitos creeks split. Her mother was born and raised in Pajaro. Both mother and daughter have experienced more than a lifetime’s share of floods and levee breaches over the years — two generations whose lives have been shaped under the constant threat of preventable disaster.
“She would ask, ‘Is it fixed? Is it fixed?’ I mean, for so many years that’s what everybody who lives here has asked,” Parker told Lookout. “The people want this done tomorrow, and I don’t blame them.”
Parker made the comments as she was leaving an event at Watsonville City Hall on Tuesday that signified that the answer to her mother’s question will soon, finally, be yes.
The local flood management agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement that officially greenlights the construction of a new Pajaro River levee, a project everyone agrees regrettably is long overdue.
The agreement marked the culmination of a nearly 70-year struggle to replace an inadequate levee system. Last week’s event, which drew two members of Congress, federal and state government officials, the speaker of the California Assembly, a state senator and city and county elected officials, moved with the kind of pomp and circumstance typical of elected and government officials.
A coordinated effort to change federal bureaucracy and obtain startup federal and state funds for a $600 million levee replacement had evaded generations of politicians and government officials. After an hour of recounting of the bureaucratic maneuvers and political playcalling required to push the project forward, I asked a few of the more local officials, such as Parker, how they were thinking about this moment, and what the vulnerable residents along the levee should take away from the latest milestone.
Toward the back of the room of fewer than 75 people, Watsonville City Manager René Mendez quietly looked on as the high-profile elected officials and bureaucrats posed for a photo op around the agreement documents.
Mendez, who has been involved in local government in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties for decades, said that when he unsuccessfully applied for the chief county executive position in Monterey County in 2004, the Pajaro River levee replacement was a main part of the interview. Officials wanted to know how Mendez would engage the community and stakeholders to help get the county closer to replacing the levee. At that point, the county had been trying and failing at the project for more than 30 years.
Looking at the crowd of electeds gathered before photographers, Mendez said he felt as if the region had been working toward this moment for “forever.”
“This is a good sign that something will happen after years of false promises, and false starts,” Mendez said. “I think that’s the message here. It takes a long time and it’s a generational project, and we’re now here, impacting the future.”
The $600 million project had long been blocked from qualifying for necessary federal dollars because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relied on a funding formula that based a project’s worth chiefly on local property values. Basically, if an area was so low-income that responding to a devastating flood would cost the federal government less money than preventing a devastating flood, the project was unlikely to be considered.
County and state officials from the Central Coast had to convince the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to change its formula, then convince the state to pitch in critical dollars as well as relax some of its environmental regulations, all of which sounds simpler than the struggle it required. The agreement signed Tuesday unlocks key federal funding that allows construction of the project to begin as early as next summer.
District 2 Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend, who, as chair of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, actually signed the agreement with Maj. Shantel Glass of the Army Corps of Engineers, said the frustration of residents along the Pajaro River is “justified.” However, he said a signed agreement meant the region was “moving toward hope.”
“Today is a transition from where we’ve been historically to what future generations are going to experience, which is a fundamentally different economic and life safety situation,” Friend told Lookout. “It is true that we have to weather multiple winters and rainy seasons before the levee is completed. But I’d much rather be in that phase where we know we’re moving toward something than the last seven decades where we haven’t even had a direction. That’s an important shift.”
Friend said the project, expected to break ground in summer 2024, will take “about five years.” That means at least as many winter and rainy seasons spent in consternation over whether the levee will hold.
Last winter’s unrelenting barrage of atmospheric rivers brought not only historic floods and another levee breach, but also a renewed desire to hold the government accountable for the infrastructure and response failures through lawsuits. Earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers wrapped up repairs on the three sections of levee that suffered the breach last winter.
The headline heading into this winter is El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean that is as likely to bring another abnormal soaking as it is drier than normal conditions. Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday that, so far, El Niño has brought drier conditions this year. Although the state remains vigilant in its own role, Nemeth said flood preparation was the “single most important thing” people could do to protect themselves and their families.
As the room began to disperse, Parker reemphasized the call for residents to stay cautious as the region heads into winter, and hold onto the knowledge that a levee replacement is on the way.
“Hang in there, people. We’re moving as fast as government can move, and it’s a miracle that it’s moving faster than it’s ever moved before,” Parker said. “I’m thrilled by that, but at the same time, we need caution. We need to keep preparing for the winters, understand that Mother Nature is going to do what it’s going to do, and we’re going to do our best to keep this moving forward.”
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