Sutter Basin Flood Risk Management Project

In May 2019, repairs will begin on the US Army Corps of Engineers’  (USACE) Sutter Basin Project, which involves repairs to nearly five miles of critically deficient Feather River west levee between Tudor Road and Cypress Avenue in south Sutter County. Repairs will include the installation of cutoff walls as deep as 140 feet into the existing levee.  Construction is expected to last two construction seasons and is being managed by the USACE.

In advance of the federal portion of the project, SBFCA 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. Preceding that work, Levee District 1 constructed a new .63 mile-long setback levee at Star Bend. The Sutter Basin 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 SBFCA 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.