State agencies and Central Valley Flood Protection Board define roles, liability and planning needs

The Department of Water Resources and the Central Valley Flood Protection Board told the Assembly they play distinct but complementary roles in flood management and that the Central Valley carries special legal liability for certain flood‑control facilities.

Laura Hollander, deputy director for flood management and dam safety at DWR, outlined the agency’s statewide roles: risk assessment and modeling, technical assistance to local agencies, forecasting and river monitoring through the California‑Nevada River Forecasting System, deployment of flood‑fight materials from a state operations center and administration of state grant programs. She said DWR coordinates seasonally with local and federal partners, and provides grants that assist local agencies with emergency planning and project development.

Hollander said the state must balance investments across maintenance of aging infrastructure, operational readiness and planning for sea level rise and climate‑driven changes in storm behavior. She also noted that the National Flood Insurance Program reaches only a small portion of households who should carry flood insurance.

Jane Dolan, president of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, traced the Valley’s flood governance history and recounted the 1861–62 ‘‘great flood’’ as context for the region’s exposure. She highlighted the board’s role in reviewing, permitting and adopting the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan mandated under SB5 and explained how the 1997–2000 litigation following the Linda levee failure (the Paterno case) led to heightened state liability for the state plan of flood control. Under that legal framework, Dolan said, the state faces substantial obligations if it assumes responsibility for facilities without timely remedial action.

Dolan described the Central Valley plan as a 30‑year roadmap that identified roughly $1 billion per year in investments (the board and other witnesses also gave higher, longer‑term estimates), prioritized regional flood planning and urged targeted funding for smaller, disadvantaged communities. She said the plan emphasizes regional coordination, public transparency and aligning planning across many local maintaining agencies.

Both DWR and the board stressed reliance on federal partners — notably the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA — for major construction and disaster assistance but noted that federal investment has become uncertain at times and that state‑local coordination is critical to operations and recovery.