The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District has completed a new setback levee along the Sacramento River in West Sacramento.
Crews completed construction of the new setback levee’s seepage cutoff wall last week. Cutoff walls strengthen levees and help prevent water leaking through or under them.
The setback levee, near South River Road, was completed last year. The existing levee was left in place throughout construction to ensure flood risk did not increase.
Setback levees are built farther back from the river channel than typical levees, and are intended not only to reduce flood risk but also to preserve wildlife habitat between the water and the levee.
“ The wall being completed—that was really the last major construction feature for this project to reduce flood risk for West Sacramento, ” said the Corps’ Shauna England, construction representative for the project . “ We still need to come back next year to remove the old levee and pave the top of the new setback levee. ”
Next year, crews are scheduled to remove the original levee and re-pave South River Road, which will run atop the new 2,200-foot-long setback levee and reconnect with the existing levee road on either side.
The project is part of the Corps’ Sacramento River Bank Protection Project, a joint effort between the Corps and the state of California’s Central Valley Flood Protection Board to repair erosion along the Sacramento River and its tributaries to reduce the threat of flooding. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District provides planning, engineering, project management, environmental restoration and construction services to military and civilian customers in parts of eight western states, including California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming.
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Press Release, December 17, 2013