How a climate change grant could fix flood-damaged roads in Sutter County, California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Pass Road does just what it sounds like.

The two-lane thoroughfare cuts through the south end of the Sutter Buttes, clearing a straight-line pass through foothills of what’s known as the world’s smallest mountain range, often used for farm workers to move quickly from one side of the buttes to the other.

The road saves workers time while keeping large farm equipment like tractors off the more heavily trafficked Highway 20 to the south. But winter storms nearly three years ago caused flooding on a western stretch of the road, revealing structural damage and closing that section until a temporary fix was put in place.

The cost of a long-term fix has fallen on Sutter County amid its recent budget shortfall while the permitting processes have slowed down its timeline.

Sutter County officials say the stalled repairs to Pass Road show the struggle in cutting through state and environmental permitting requirements and securing funding for unexpected road needs.

Now they hope they’ve found a way to curb that problem in the future.

By recently accepting a Caltrans grant to study the effects of climate change on the Live Oak Canal and Gilsizer Drainage District in northern Sutter County, county officials expect to have access to future funds to address damaged roads and infrastructure throughout the county.

What’s the problem?

Nearly 70% of Sutter County is within a floodplain – more than twice the percentage of any other California county – leaving much of the land outside of population center Yuba City prone to flooding and impractical to develop.

Parts of the flood-prone county have taken on water and seen infrastructure fail in recent years. Inadequate drainage has accentuated the problem, according to the county’s grant proposal, disrupting transportation, creating safety concerns and causing economic repercussions.

The grant totals $314,500 and is matched by $41,500 in local funds, split and covered by remaining dollars budgeted for the two drainage districts, which border each other in northeast Sutter County.

Neal Hay, development services director for Sutter County, told supervisors this month that the grant will go toward gauging the effects of climate change in those areas, in terms of how existing pipes and culverts would handle heavier rainfall.

From there, the county may become eligible for construction grants to repair roads and drainage infrastructure, such as replacing old pipes with larger ones, fixing culverts and other waterways beneath roads.

“Without the grant or the study being done, we wouldn’t be eligible for future construction funds,” Hay said.

The cost of fixing county roads falls on the county itself, which has already been cash-strapped in recent years, tightening its budget and putting a hiring freeze in place for vacant county jobs.

The county has just shy of 1,200 crossings, which include about any path for water crossing beneath a county road, Hay said, whether beneath a bridge or coursing through pipes or natural waterways.

“We have a lot of failing culverts throughout the county,” Hay said.

County Administrator Steve Smith told supervisors this month that, in the past, the county has submitted emergency applications for road repairs that have been denied by the state.

“We let them know some of these thoroughfares are critical arteries for farming and they’ve denied our ability to work on those,” he said.

One example is Pass Road.

Although outside of the study area, it serves as an example of the red tape involved with fixing county infrastructure.

“I think the public’s unaware of this, how long this takes for these permits,” said Supervisor Mike Ziegenmeyer. “And we live in an agriculture community, which means when you have a culvert that goes bad and you can’t drive an almond truck, or rice truck or walnut truck over that road … we’ve had roads shut down for almost two years now.”

County water

The Live Oak Canal and Gilsizer Drainage District have the most waterways in the county, Hay said. Water from Yuba City drains through the Gilsizer district, giving it particular importance to study then improve.

“We need it to leave, otherwise we could have more localized flooding in the city,” Hay said of water flowing from Yuba City.

Directing water throughout Sutter County, given its vast floodplain coverage, presents challenges that are also affected by how farmers work their land. The drainage that comes from an orchard, where sitting water can harm the trees, varies a lot compared to rice fields, where much more water is needed.

Changing land from a rice field to orchard may affect how water moves to other parts of the county.

“That’s what that study is going to look at, because the runoff from that land is going into these pipes and there’s more runoff than there used to be 50 years ago,” Hay said.

Intensifying storms

County officials pitched Caltrans on a project analyzing the effects of climate change on the existing infrastructure in the two drainage districts, including how much water the pipes and culverts can direct and the structural integrity of those drains, according to the grant application.

Using the state’s climate prediction models, the county will evaluate how well the existing culverts are expected to handle future waterflow. The county plans to prioritize which infrastructure improvements are needed most to handle future needs.

Many of the 1,200 water crossings in Sutter County are more than 50 years old, according to the grant application, often with no record of how they were designed. County officials hope this grant opens the door toward reapproaching those waterways to handle heavier storms better.

“Climate change has already created a shift in the size, shape, duration, frequency … and intensity of storms over the past 100 years, and these changes are anticipated to continue,” the grant application reads. “Today’s storms generate higher peak flows, which the historic drainage systems cannot accommodate.”

The project is slated to begin in November and end in June 2027, according to the grant application.

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