WRDA Provides $444 Million for Folsom Dam Spillway Project

By Robert Carlsen

Enactment of the 2007 Water Resources Development Act means $444 million in additional authorized federal funds for the Army Corps of Engineers’ new spillway project at Folsom Dam outside Sacramento.

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Initial work, already is under way, thanks to authorizations in earlier WRDAs, and appropriations. The Corps, working with the state Reclamation Board and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, the non-federal sponsors of the Joint Federal Project at Folsom, awarded a $16-million phase-one contract in October to Kiewit Pacific for clearing and excavation work at the site. Kiewit won the contract mainly because it was in the midst of a $117-million, four-lane bridge project across the American River below the dam and had lots of equipment handy, resulting in the lowest bid.

Michael Finnegan, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, Mid-Pacific Region, says the budget for the spillway project is in the neighborhood of $800 million to $900 million. As a federal reclamation project, Folsom Dam has the highest safety, flood control and security priorities among many dams in California, which resulted in some overlapping jurisdictions and delays in getting the spillway project under way.

Finnegan says, “The Corps is in charge of flood control and had used previous WRDA funding in the 1990s, but the other entities in the state had other priorities as well and our job was coordinating and combining three different Folsom Dam projects into one.” He adds that a complicated plan was dropped in 2005 because of inflated bids.

The new plan calls for a $1.3 billion, 15-year dam safety and flood control project that will need federal appropriations, Finnegan says. He adds that the current project’s cost estimate is about $1 billion less than the price tags for three plans offered in 2005.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission recently praised the members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate for voting overwhelmingly to override President Bush’s veto of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. The national water resources, flood protection and water conservation bill authorizes $4 million to continue work on a new regional desalination project jointly supported by the SFPUC, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, the Contra Costa Water District and the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

“With our water supplies at risk and our levees vulnerable to collapse, Congress has done the right thing for California and the nation by overriding the President’s veto,” says SFPUC General Manager Susan Leal. “The federal support for regional desalination that this legislation brings will help ensure reliable water for the Bay Area during the next drought or emergency.”

The joint Bay Area Regional Desalination Project is currently beginning a pilot study in eastern Contra Costa County, testing pre-treatment options, membrane performance and brine disposal approaches. The location is one of three sites under consideration for the development of a larger regional facility capable of producing up to 71 million gallons a day of desalinated water. The regional desalination project has already won a $1 million grant from the California Department of Water Resources to begin the pilot program. The $4 million authorized by enactment of WRDA will allow the regional water agency partners to conduct technical and institutional analyses for the selection of a full-scale project site and support the environmental review and permitting for the pilot study.

The Associated General Contractors of America also praised the passage of the WRDA.

“This week’s veto override means that this nation will finally have the opportunity for new investments in improved flood control, increasing navigation capacity and ecosystem restoration,” says AGC CEO Stephen E. Sandherr.

AGC says it played a central leadership role in the passage and veto override of the largest civil works bill in the nation's history and hailed the Congress for its willingness to stand up and recognize the need for investment in our nation's water resources.

“The seven-year gap in reauthorizing WRDA and the increasing need to invest in our nation's water resources accounts for the $23.2 billion in project authorizations,” adds Sandherr. “This figure represents a small down payment toward covering the nation's staggering waterways investment gap.”

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