The Californian from Salinas, California • A6

6A thecalifornian.comThe Salinas Californian ExperienceYouCanCountOn ClairJ.Wright 831-424-6365 831-449-6074 MariaBarrera 831-809-7301 1191AN.MAINSTREET·SALINAS•831-443-1025 KENCOPROPERTYMANAGEMENT VS-9000195288 FEATUREDPROPERTIES 35M APlE AlInAS 831-424-0001 TncREAlESTATE cOM Al BRE 00513158 lISTInGS SELLINGMONTEREYCOUNTYFOR40YEARS REnTAlS (JeffPluta214-0042) (JeffPluta214-0042) (ScottCraig214-2651)PENDING (JeffPluta214-0042) (ScottCraig214-2651)PENDING (DaleHandley595-0237) (JeffPluta214-0042) (JeffPluta214-0042) (ColleenKidd424-0001) (ColleenKidd424-0001) (DaleHandley595-0237) VS-9000195913 SouthSalinas $350,000 DALEHANDLEY595-0237 MIKEHANDLEY262-2400 67CarmelAvenue SouthSalinas $575,000 SAN FRANCISCO Billions of dollars in flood projects have eased fears of levee breaks near capital and some other cities, but state and federal workers are joining farmers with tractors in round-the-clock battles this week to stave off any chain-reaction failure of rural levees protecting farms and farm towns. As the wet winter forces operators of dams to send more water roaring downstream, the struggle to spot and shore up weak spots in nearly 1,600 miles of levees in the Central Valley is unrelenting, said Rex Osborn, spokesman for emergency operations in San Joaquin County, one of the main farm and dairy counties. Hundreds of workers with the state conservation corps, engineers, water experts, emergency-management officials and others were scrambling again Thursday to lay down more rock and earth on levees where flood water was threatening to burst through saturated berms. a flood fight taking place at adozen different places right Osborn said about the levees in his county. they just hold and do their Osborn said.

if one thing throws it off Once the waters ease sometime this summer, California lawmakers will look at releasing $500 million to patch and upgrade the strained flood control system. But Jeffrey Mount, a flood-control expert and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California think tank, and other experts say Central Valley levees alone need billions of dollars in work. Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday asked state lawmakers to quickly approve $387 million to speed up flood control projects in the Central Valley, using money from a water bond approved by voters in 2014. He said the state has nearly $50 billion in unmet needs for flood-management infrastructure.

required is to take some immediate action and then over the longer term we have to invest billions of dollars in California said Brown, a Democrat. got to belly up to the bar and start spending Northern California has received more than twice the normal amount of rain and snow this winter, breaking five years of drought. Full rivers and water surging from dam spillways are pouring water into the Central Valley, a 450- mile-long depression running north and south through the heart of California. The region absorbs runoff from coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Winter rains used to turn the Central Valley into an inland sea hundreds of miles wide each rainy season.

The capital, Sacramento, flooded regularly, forcing one governor, Leland Stanford, to row a boat to his 1862 inauguration, according to state lore. As recently as 1997, Central Valley levee breaks flooded hundreds of square miles and caused billions of dollars in property damage. Nine people died in floods that winter. Massive spending since then, including a $5 billion bond issue approved by state voters, has strengthened the system of levees, wetlands and weirs that protect the nearly 500,000 residents of Sacramento, along with the people in most of the smaller vulnerable cities elsewhere in the Central Valley. So far, thanks partly to flood-control efforts and partly to the luck of breaks between storms, experts said, the Central Valley has been spared from major levee breaks this time around.

Flooding that forced thousands from San Jose this week came from an overfull reservoir that caused acreek to top its banks, not from a levee break. the system been here, all the major cities would have been under this winter, said Joe Countryman, aflood-prevention veteran on the Central flood-control board. can tell you that for In rural areas, farmers and others who own and primarily benefit from the levees are expected to maintain them and be the first responders when trouble strikes. Fewer than half of the 1,600 miles of Central Valley levees qualify for repairs through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose standards limit, for example, any trees along riverside levees.

Along the San Joaquin River, farmers rolled out in tractors and other heavy equipment, working through the night, earlier this week when they noticed a 30- foot break in a levee after a filling dam upstream had to release more water, alfalfa grower Tom Coit said. The emergency work that farmers and federal and state workers are doing on the rural levees now is saving their own fields and cattle while preventing the single levee break that could set off a chain of breaks, threatening farm towns downstream, said Osborn, the San Joaquin County emergency spokesman. a fight that farmers and public employees will be fighting until midsummer, when the runoff from Sierra Nevada snow eases, said Mount, the water expert. when California should start another round in its fight for the levees, Mount said $20 billion in long-needed maintenance and improvements statewide, including preparing for the stronger flows that are coming more often as the climate changes. we wake up, and the waters have passed going to see avery tired, damaged, levee Mount said.

AP writer Sophia Bollag in Sacramento contributed. SACRAMENTO, Calif. Troopers in Northern California have arrested a man they believe was the subject of police chase that resulted in an death. California Highway Patrol told the Sacramento that a 26-year-old man was taken into custody Thursday in connection with the death of 31-year-old Officer Lucas Chellew of Granite Bay. Authorities say they believe the man they arrested is the person Chellew was chasing Wednesday when he crashed his motorcycle and was fatally injured.

Sacramento County Main Jail records show that the suspect has been booked for investigation of evading a police officer, reckless driving, vehicle theft, possession of a stolen vehicle and resisting arrest. He was also booked on an outstanding warrant from Pacer County, although it was not immediately clear what the warrant was for. SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. More than 270 college students have moved out of a dorm at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo because a nearby hill continues to slide toward the building. The university says it was necessary to close Fremont Hall by Friday because another storm predicted to arrive during the weekend is expected to further compromise the hill.

The dorm was evacuated last Saturday and after the decision to close it for the remainder of the academic year, students returned Thursday to pack up their belongings. The residents have been relocated elsewhere at the university and off campus. KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. A man suspected of killing a woman in Northern California has been wanted in Oregon since a 2006 felony assault in Klamath Falls. The Herald and News reports a woman told police that her boyfriend Robert Vogee strangled her past the point of consciousness.

Awarrant for arrest was issued in November 2006. Vogee is now is suspected of killing Pamela Sue Johnson. Her remains were recovered Tuesday after a fire at home in Alturas, California. The 59-year-old suspect was hospitalized after being found unconscious. Modoc County District Attorney Jordan Funk says authorities believe Vogee set the fire as both a suicide attempt and an effort to destroy evidence of a homicide.

Funk says Vogee and Johnson were casual acquaintances who served on the Modoc County Arts Council. Acandlelight vigil for Johnson was held Thursday outside the county courthouse. California man arrested for fleeing, causing deadly chase Cal Poly dorm closed for rest of school year as hill slides Alturas homicide suspect wanted in Oregon for felony assault ASSOCIATED PRESS ASSOCIATED PRESS ASSOCIATED PRESS Rural Calif. levees under siege by winter onslaught ELLEN KNICKMEYER ASSOCIATED PRESS RICH Aload of rocks is dropped to patch a crater on Feb. 15 as repairs are made on the Tyler Island levee near Isleton, Calif.

RICH Billions of dollars of flood projects in the past two decades have eased fears of levee breaks in Sacramento and other Central Valley cities. CHRIS APPEAL-DEMOCRAT VIA AP Crews shore up a section of levee along the Sacramento River in Verona, on Feb. 14..