There are 77 personnel working on the levee repair and associated restoration effort. In an effort to improve Federal flood response and floodplain management in the future, the Clinton Administration challenged Federal agencies to look at non-structural alternatives instead of structural repairs to levee systems. Thus, the Office of Management and Budget in coordination with the Council on Environmental Quality designated the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as the lead Federal agency to facilitate this effort. The Corps convened an Interagency Task Force on 3 March 1997 to review floodplain management and procedures for evaluation and review of levee and associated restoration projects. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Transportation are not actively participating.
Agencies continue to struggle with their respective workloads.
The agencies have been reminded that they must become involved early in the process, if the non-structural alternatives program is to be addressed appropriately. The ITF will coordinate all map requests from the other agencies with Sacramento District. NRCS is still reviewing the flowage easement program for which they now have funding based on the Supplemental Appropriations Bill. The California DWR and the Reclamation Board updated the ITF relative to their being a need to chart all the ongoing activities to understand the relationship to each other as well as the status of three bills currently working in the State legislature. The Reclamation Board indicated that land owners downstream of the NSA proposal for RD 2124 have some concerns.