I agree with the general point of today's Sun-Star editorial: the Delta levees certainly need to be fixed as quickly as possible.
However, a faint memory of Paterno v. the State of California and five minutes on Google looking up state liability issues on the Delta levees reminded me that, regardless of the size of the infrastructure bond and the extent of the repairs to the levees, if one or more break, the way things presently stand, the California taxpayers are responsible for paying for the damage. It looks as if each dollar invested in levee repair ends up incurring an unknown amount of liability in case of flood, which could be caused by a number of factors even the state Legislature could not be held responsible for.
The alternative that has been developing -- not enough state investment in levee repair and more effort spent on promoting a peripheral canal -- appear to be a combination of choice and response to the drastic state financial and natural resources crisis. If there is any lesson in it, it might be that decades of failure of political will to deal with this, admittedly, thankless, punishing political issue, may not be forgiveable or reparable today. There were three wake up calls in a dozen years: the 1997 floods, Jones Island and Katrina.
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