Regarding the ongoing travails of Upper Lake citizens plagued with actual and threatened flood impacts, the community has been trying to remedy the situation since the FEMA-declared disaster of Dec. 31, 2005, when the floodwaters damaged downtown merchants, residents and surrounding areas.

The more recent area of vulnerability, located just north of town at the Clover Creek Diversion Channel — a constructed flood protection facility — is entangled in Department of Public Works management of multi-agency requirements for state permits, while high-dollar consultants hired by DPW in 2021 continue to drag out the “design” process that substitutes for work in what is known as Flood Zone 8.

Additional problems created by designation of the entirely manmade flood control facility as “habitat” by former DPW staff render the diversion channel’s routine maintenance subject to environmental constraints that are not warranted for strictly constructed flood prevention systems.

A special meeting conducted by the consultants in Upper Lake a couple of weeks ago was described by the West Region Town Hall chairman on Feb. 21 as mystifying, since the last three years of outspoken community members providing “feedback” in public forums appeared to be unknown (or irrelevant) to new consultant representatives.

Much, if not most, of the town was built long before FEMA existed. Agricultural levees erected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, long anticipated to fail in the former reclamation area, were maintained by the state until responsibility was “transferred” to the County DPW, which cannot do more than respond to storm damage when necessary (most preventive maintenance is not funded).

It is hard to accept that county leadership, following the 2005 disaster, did not address obvious risks by correcting the official floodplain mapping and establishing regular maintenance schedules for flood protection facilities and property owners.

Upper Lake citizens are right to pursue corrective action by the Board of Supervisors before the next disaster happens.

Betsy Cawn runs the Essential Public Information Center. She lives in Upper Lake, California.