Flood Control

The inanity of our current flood control system can not be better demonstrated than by a Senate Committee hearing following the massive Central Valley floods of 1995 and 97. The Senate President, tired of the human misery, death, and hundreds of millions in flood damage paid out by the state and federal governments, was determined to chart a new course. In his mind, continuing to build new subdivisions in flood zones and rebuild homes and businesses in the same place and in the same manner was a waste of human life and resources. He scheduled a series of public informational hearings to inform both legislators and the public of the long history of flooding in California, gather information from experts from both the US and abroad, and ultimately draft legislation to effectuate the changes recommended. 

The first witness  was the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers. He had just completed a study of the Great Mississippi and Missouri River floods of 1993. The hydrographic basin encompassed approximately 320,000 square miles. Within this zone, the flooded area totaled around 30,000 square miles and was the worst such U.S. disaster since the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, as measured by duration, area inundated, persons displaced, crop and property damage, and number of record river levels. The conclusion of the Corps was that even on the Mississippi, a river that the Corps had done its best to contain, the only answer to avoiding future losses was to move entire towns out of the floodplain, which it was in the process of undertaking. 

Visiting Dutch engineers, responsible for protecting that ancient and low lying country, described the 10,000 year levees that the Netherlands had built to protect their nation. Nonetheless, in the face of rising seas from climate disruption, even these levees were being found inadequate. They compared their massive dykes to the puny 100 year levees allegedly protecting Central Valley communities, and how in Holland they were reluctantly abandoning land to the sea, retreating before the rising seas.  

Climate scientists described the impacts of higher tides on Delta levees in the coming century. The informational hearing went smoothly and the Senate leader instructed staff to develop legislation. This eventually included both a flood bond and statutory changes that would begin the process of moving people out of harm’s way. Just as critically the legislation would enact strict standards regarding local building codes in floodplains and provided a prohibition on building new structures in deep flood plains. To objective observers this fit the definition of common sense. Who could oppose such a thing? Welcome to the theatre of the absurd that is modern politics in California’s struggling effort in representative democracy.

The bill was heard in the Senate Committee on Water and Agriculture, chaired by Senator Darwin Nantez, a 3rd generation Portuguese heir to a dairy business in Kern County in the lower San Joaquin Valley. Nantez, five years later, shortly after being elected to Congress as “The Last Dairyman,” quietly moved his entire operation, with the exception of 1 Holstein heifer, to Kansas, where radical environmentalists would not force him to treat his waste before dumping it in local waterways or complain about his spraying pesticides on vast spreads of alfalfa when farm workers were in the field. 

Nantez and his libertine buddies, some Democrat, some Republican, were far more comfortable in the nightclubs of Los Angeles and high priced dining establishments in  D.C. than they were in the rusticated scrub lands of western Kern, Fresno, and Tulare counties where their Azorean grandparents had settled and farmed. If ever there were case studies in the quandary of inherited wealth, the Portuguese katzenjammer kids of the lower San Joaquin would be worthy avatars. Several purchased congressional seats, from where they played the part of the hard working landed gentry put upon by elite environmentalists and big city liberals unaware of life on the farm. One, having bankrupted his father’s dairy through a series of poorly executed business schemes secretly sold his groundwater rights to an Orange County developer in a midnight deal that, when discovered, nearly led to the first lynching in Corcoran (of a Caucasian) in 100 years. 

While none of these boys were successful farmers, they were smart enough to understand that their groundwater and the land above had significant value for other uses than farming and were more than open to selling out their neighbors if the right offer came along. This required extending an open hand to any developer who wished to plow under trees and vines, dairy barns, or grazing land, when a quick buck could be made, and the proposal to ban development in flood plains was likely to dry up the spigot of developer money. This could not be allowed to stand!

So, the carefully choreographed opposition came forward. Corporate farmers, rich on government water and crop subsidies, some flying to Sacramento in private jets, others driving their cars of choice, big gas guzzling block long Cadillacs, showed up in committee in work shirts, clearly not worn in years, as the carefully pressed and creased costumes would attest if scrutinized. They plead poverty and the iniquities of the “government created drought” that forced them to consider selling out, never mentioning that their extreme wealth often came from these very same carefully tended government programs - checks dispersed by the millions to PO boxes in the gilded zip codes of San Marino and Bel Air.

Next came the developers with their patriotic pablum painted in a red white and blue  gauze chimera - a touching allegory in sesquipedalian prevarication to the American dream of home ownership, minus the probability of total loss at the bottom of a flood plain! The Pro-Tem was prepared for this. As the slicker than a tadpole in an oil slick director of the California Builders Association painted this sad picture of salt of the earth types being denied their right to a cheap tract home on a quarter acre of heaven, staff darkened the room and projected two photos on the screen behind the dais. The first, showed a new development sign adjacent to land along the San Joaquin River - a beautiful oak, a white picket fence, a smiling very blonde couple and a gently rolling stream in the background brought a quiet hush when the witness looked up momentarily and smiled at the Norman Rockwellish scene. The sign said, “FUTURE HOME SHADY OAKS DEVELOPMENT.” 

Next up, photo number two brought a loud groan from the overflow crowd. It showed the same location the previous January. Only the sign stood above the deeply flooded road, a lone duck juxtaposed beneath its still dripping and now crookedly askew lettering. The director, sweat now dripping from his perfectly permed and pomaded hair, his pancake makeup shining ever so slightly, wrapped up quickly, gathered his prepared remarks and his rhino skin attache, and glaring at the Pro-Tem, slunk away from the witness table.

Nantez's last opposition witness represented the California Real Estate Syndicate. He thought this would be the coup de grace for the highly disruptive bill. The realtors were masters at this game. They were local business people. Members of local Chambers of Commerce, Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis Clubs, Elks Lodges, and Masonic Temples in every political district in the state. They showed up, they contributed, and they voted! The room was filled with their supporters. The chief of Government operations, Valerie Veracruz, a beautiful raven haired woman of indeterminate age, slowly made her way to the witness table, now cleared with the exception of the Pro-tem and staff.

The audience sat transfixed, by her elegance - at the perfect hair and make-up, and stared with awe and envy at the gorgeous silk suit that clung to her as she came forward, dark hair shimmering on the stark white blouse peeking above her navy pinstripe suit.

She smelled like money. Unlike the maudlin farmers and the table thumping loquacious developers that preceded her, Ms Veracruz spoke softly and deliberately, but with an air of authority and self confidence that only a lifetime of stomping the shit out of overstuffed puffed up adolescent frat boys could engender. She pleaded for the hard working real estate agents in the audience. With this she swept her diamond bejeweled hand behind her as her clients stood and clapped, and testified in a calm steady voice that this bill would result in irreparable harm to them and their families, foreclosing the possibility of commissions to be earned on the thousands of homes that would not be built if this well -intentioned but poorly considered measure were to pass. She theatrically bowed her head and wept as she contemplated this apocalyptic scenario, though if you looked closely enough you might notice the dry eyes beneath the bowed head. 

She brought her dramatic testimony nearly to an end, wiping an imaginary tear from her coal black piercing eyes. Finally moving to the empty lectern to the right of the witness table she closed, voice theatrically rising to a crescendo, “we, the thousands of hard working estate agents in California would be OFFENDED if this committee were to pass out this bill. And”….. Now she lowered her voice to nearly a whisper, “will not forget this come the next election.” With that she once more took a seat at the table. 

The Pro-Tem rose slowly after scribbling something on a piece of paper. Lifting his heavy ex-prizefighters body he approached the lectern, lantern like jaw fixed and thrust forward. “Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I have heard the eloquent and passionate Ms Veracruz’ plea for her numerous clients. I believe I have a compromise that might get to the heart of the matter. My esteemed opposition claims, and let me be sure I wrote this down accurately, that her clients would “be offended by this bill” precluding development in deep flood plains. Here is my offer. Rather than the outright ban on placing homes and businesses in deep flood plains as currently proposed, I will bend to the market forces and “freedom” of commerce the agents, builders, and corporate farmers argue is at the heart of the American dream. I agree. Property and home sales should represent the real market value of the underlying asset without the heavy hand of the government tipping the scales.” 

Here the Senate leader stopped and with much care slowly unfolded the note he had placed in his committee binder. “I believe the proper market value of a piece of property in a deep flood plain that will in all probability flood can only be ascertained if the buyer is made aware of that likelihood. So I propose striking the entire bill and substituting the following language at the top of the title deed in 24 point bold italics. THIS PROPERTY LIES IN A FLOOD PLAIN. THERE IS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT DURING A 30 YEAR MORTGAGE IT WILL BE SUBMERGED. THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA BARES NO  LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DAMAGES. CAVEAT EMPTOR (MAY THE BUYER BEWARE).” 

In an instant he had blown away Valerie Veracruz’ studied calm. She nearly shouted at him. “Senator, there is much money at stake and the livelihood of many Californians. I can not believe you are making light of our opposition.”

“Ms Veracruz, I assure you I am dead serious. I am a capitalist. I believe that things have value only when buyer and seller have symmetric information. If the information is asymmetric, as it is under current law, where the seller is aware of the risk but the buyer is not, then you have a false economy.” 

“Mr. Chair, since the opposition has rejected my good faith effort at a compromise, I withdraw the amendments and ask for an aye vote on the bill before you.” 

With that, the bill passed. 

PS: The bill made it to the Governor’s desk, where, based on the policy arguments made by the opposition, clearly having nothing to do with the large contributions made to his reelection campaign, vetoed the bill.