Repairs will soon be underway for nearly five miles of critically deficient Feather River west levee between Tudor Road and Cypress Avenue in south Sutter County.
In late February, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a $35 million contract to Great Lakes E&I for its Sutter Basin Project, which involves the installation of cutoff walls as deep as 140 feet into the existing levee.
Construction crews will begin mobilizing in May and repair work is expected to last two construction seasons. The project will be managed by the USACE.
“ We are excited to continue the efforts to lower the risk of a historically flood-prone region. The initiative taken by SBFCA to move ahead of the Corps process has us in an excellent position to bring substantial benefits to this community much sooner ,” said Corps project manager Patrick Howell .
In advance of the federal portion of the project, the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency (SBFCA) recently completed repairs on 36 miles of Feather River west levee from Thermalito Afterbay south to Star Bend (locally known as the Feather River West Levee Project 1), along with nearly 1 mile adjacent to Laurel Avenue.
The federal project will augment these repairs by tying into the Star Bend Setback in the north and the Laurel Avenue repair in the south. Notably, the project will replace a temporary seepage berm north of Laurel Avenue that was constructed as an emergency repair following the early 2017 storms and Oroville Spillway incident.
Funding for the $77 million project is largely made possible through an appropriation in the USACE’s 2018 Work Plan. That document authorized a 65 percent federal cost share for the project, up to a maximum of $50 million.
The remaining 35 percent cost share is to be split between the state and SBFCA, with the state paying up to 70 percent of that 35 percent.