Chapter 5. Maintenance Costs Of Vegetation On Levees of California Water Code >> Division 5. >> Part 2. >> Chapter 5.

The Legislature finds and declares as follows:
  (a) Although the levees of flood control projects in this state have in the past been considered to be single-purpose, flood control features, many of these projects receive heavy nonlocal usage for recreation, transportation, and other purposes for which the retention and maintenance of vegetative cover is desirable.
  (b) Construction and maintenance practices have been developed over the past several decades which were designed to minimize costs while still furnishing the required degree of flood control. These practices in many instances resulted in "bare" levees, devoid of any vegetative cover which might interfere with local maintenance, levee inspection, or flood fighting.
  (c) Flood control project levees are increasingly recognized as valuable wildlife, recreational, scenic, and aesthetic resources, and construction and maintenance standards have been developed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of California which minimize vegetation removal and which encourage or require, as a condition of the project work, replanting and controlled vegetation maintenance on such levees as part of the responsibility of local flood control districts.
  (d) Costs of maintaining vegetation on levees for such non-flood-control purposes as wildlife enhancement, recreation, and scenic beauty are approximately double those of normal flood-control-related maintenance, and nonlocal users are the prime beneficiaries. It is therefore appropriate that the general public participate in meeting such additional maintenance costs.

It is the intent of the Legislature, in providing for state participation in the additional costs attributable to the non-flood-control activities described in this chapter, that the Reclamation Board and the Department of Water Resources, in preparing rules and regulations to implement this chapter, provide that, in processing applications from flood control districts for state participation in such costs, highest priority be given to those districts in which factors, such as the size of the district, degree of nonlocal benefits, and level of non-flood-control maintenance costs which have been transferred to the district due to circumstances beyond their control, combine to work financial hardship on such districts.

Wherever the words "department or the Reclamation Board" are used together in this chapter, they shall mean the Reclamation Board as to any flood control project levees under its jurisdiction and the Department of Water Resources as to all other flood control project levees.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, it is the intention of the Legislature that the state shall pay 50 percent of the costs associated with the operation and maintenance of project facilities under the State Water Resources Law of 1945 which are directly attributable to the planting or retention of controlled vegetative cover for wildlife, recreational, scenic, and aesthetic purposes on project levees.

Local agencies maintaining project facilities under the State Water Resources Law of 1945 shall be eligible for reimbursement pursuant to the provisions of this chapter if the cost of maintenance is increased by the planting or retention of vegetative cover on such levees, if the local agency agrees to maintain such vegetative cover on project levees as may be determined by the department or Reclamation Board, after consultation with any other affected state agencies, to be necessary for wildlife habitat, recreational, aesthetic, and scenic purposes.

Local agencies entering into agreements with the state shall annually prepare a work program and estimate of cost for conducting any maintenance activities necessary to carry out the project maintenance and the purposes of this chapter and shall submit the proposed program and cost estimates to the department or the Reclamation Board for review. The department or the Reclamation Board shall review the proposed program and, after receiving the comments of any other affected state agencies, the department or the Reclamation Board shall certify for reimbursement 50 percent of those costs which are found to be attributable to the maintenance of vegetative cover for wildlife, recreational, aesthetic, and scenic purposes, and may allocate funds appropriated for these purposes to local agencies which have entered into agreements with the state pursuant to this chapter.

Administrative costs incurred by the department or the Reclamation Board under this chapter in any fiscal year shall not exceed 10 percent of the annual cost of the program established by this chapter.

State expenditures for the purposes of this chapter shall not exceed the amount of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) per year.