Spiraling costs delay infrastructure fixes

Rural areas struggle to maintain federally built levees, dams

Mateusz Perkowski
Capital Press

May 9, 2008

On a frigid morning in early January, residents of Fernley , Nev. , were roused from sleep by floodwaters gushing into their homes.

The flood wasn't caused by rainstorms or rapid snow melt, but by rodents.

Apparently the critters burrowed through the earthen bank of a nearby irrigation canal, causing a breach. It was the ninth failure of the century-old Truckee Canal , and it damaged nearly 600 houses.

"Many of our homes sat in water of levels up to eight feet for several days," said Todd Cutler, the town's mayor, in submitted testimony. "Though we may not have lost life, the affected residents lost much of their livelihood."

The Fernley incident, which resulted in $55 million in property damage, may portend future disasters, according to testimony at a recent Senate hearing about U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water infrastructure.

Water storage and delivery systems built by the agency decades ago are slowly deteriorating, said Thomas Donnelly, executive vice president of the National Water Resources Association.

Though their initial purpose was primarily irrigation, many structures now serve municipal and other purposes as well, he said. "Regional economies have developed around these projects."

The originally intended users are now unable to pay to completely overhaul these systems to safely accommodate modern uses, but the Bureau of Reclamation is barred from providing effective assistance, he said.

Major rehabilitation is technically considered an "operation and maintenance" cost that irrigators must pay back to the agency within a year - a time frame that's clearly not realistic, Donnelly said.

"This is a problem that, if not addressed immediately, will result in severe consequences sooner rather than later," he said.

Of course, rebuilding water infrastructure won't be cheap, testified Tony Willardson, deputy director of the Western States Water Council. Getting all of it in decent shape could cost $1.6 trillion, he said, citing a study by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

But postponing rehabilitation could only add to the expense, as the Truckee Canal failure demonstrated.

Months after the disaster, the residents of Fernley are still trying to put their lives back together, and many are suing the city and county governments as well as the irrigation district that operates the canal, Cutler said.

"One of my biggest fears is that lawsuits will do nothing more than tear our community apart," Cutler said. Meanwhile, the fundamental problem of the outdated structure remains.

Robert Johnson, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, stressed that age alone doesn't determine the functionality of a project, but he did acknowledge that older facilities do require frequent repairs, and that those needs will likely continue growing.

"The very nature of the aging process will inevitably lead to increased pressure on budgets and user rates to keep infrastructure service commensurate with past levels," he said.

The meager financial resources of some Reclamation project partners, such as irrigation districts, poses a challenge for the agency, Johnson said. However, the government must not be expected to absorb undue costs, he said.

While each structure's circumstances are different, "for facilities that are being operated and maintained by non-federal entities, these entities must be accountable for maintaining the assets," Johnson said.

Another complicating factor is the current regulatory environment, said Charles McGinnis, retired major general and public works director for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

When the majority of the agency's roughly 700 water projects were built more than 50 years ago, overall standards weren't as high as they are today.

"Water rights regulations, Endangered Species Act requirements, environmental impact assessment requirements and expectations for increased openness and public involvement in decision-making place additional demands on Reclamation's project managers, operators and decision makers," he said.

Other factors are also straining infrastructure. New "exurban" communities are diverting water at the same time that more water is expected to be used for aquatic habitat preservation, Willardson said.

"In the future, there will be even greater demand placed on the West's limited water resources and Reclamation's aging projects, many of which are well beyond their designed life," he said.

Staff writer Mateusz Perkowski is based in Salem , Ore. E-mail: mperkowski@capitalpress.com.

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