 People living along the Napa River have experienced serious flooding since 1862. Napa Creek, flowing through the center of the city of Napa, is also flood-prone. While area residents are resourceful and resilient, the impact of flooding on their lives and property is substantial. In late December 2005, after a prolonged dry period, a large-scale atmospheric change caused a severe weather system to move a series of six critical storms into California. Ten inches of rainfall in 24 hours caused flooding in the city of Napa. These storms created the worst flood of record on Napa Creek, eight feet above flood stage. The river rose to 23 feet at the Lincoln Bridge, four and a half feet above flood level. This would be the first test for the city since the completion of many recent mitigation projects. This is a project that encompasses only over eight miles of river within the city of Napa. The far end has done a lot of reclaimed wetlands. We're seeing a lot of birds and wildlife coming back, which is exciting. During our recent flooding event, we called it our sponge. That was the area that was widened and made more accessible so that the water could flow through the community quicker and faster, and we definitely saw that with an advantage. Another part of our flood control project is doing terracing, letting the water flow where it naturally was going to flow or flood. We're just going to leave it as open space, it'll be terraced, and really an opening up of the river. We want the community to enjoy, be able to have access to the river. This project was brought about mostly because Napa has flooded 19 times over the last 50 years, so people were really fed up with the ongoing flooding year after year and the repetitive losses. So people were motivated to pass a half-cent sales tax to fund the local share of this flood project, and then the Corps of Engineers is funding the federal half. The project has benefits in terms of removing people from the flood plain, businesses and residences, but it also creates wetlands, terraces, and river trails that run the full length of the city. This area has been mostly completed, the 3rd Street Bridge, the soft-skill bridge, and the 1st Street Bridge over Napa Creek and Bypass. The river is flowing past us here today and underneath the 3rd Street Bridge. This area has been widened from about 155 feet to 350 feet at the 3rd Street Bridge, draining 270 square miles of the Napa Valley. The solution to the Napa River flood problem is watched closely by river communities around the world. The Napa project is a new way to think about an old problem. Its implementation proves that flood protection and environmental protection are not competing goals. The flood protection project was created by a community coalition of public and private sector and created a living river concept where the river is actually widened instead of channelized with large flood walls and levees. So by widening the river it gives it more room to pass through the city instead of through city streets. So the project started at the downstream end with 500 acres of wetland being created which helped lower the water surface elevations, terracing and bridge replacements up to downtown, which also continued that lowering of the water surface elevations and the benefits which keeps the river within the river banks. And then further upstream from here there will be more a bypass channel, bridge replacements and then some flood walls and levees upstream of there. The living river design has been described as a new paradigm for flood protection projects in the United States. Living river principles include reconnecting the river to its historic flood plain, allowing the river to meander as much as possible, retaining natural channel features like mud flats, shallows and sandbars, and supporting a continuous fish migration and riparian corridor along the river. To achieve these results, old dykes have been breached to restore tidal marshlands. Bridges were replaced, removing obstacles to water flow. Riverbank terracing is creating more room for large volumes of water to exit into the wetlands. A dry bypass channel will provide a shortcut for the river during high flood flows while sustaining the natural oxbow habitat. New dykes, levees and flood walls are being built to accommodate runoff behind existing flood walls. In the city, the first and third street bridges were raised above the 100-year flood plain to avoid debris accumulation around bridge pilings. And the river was widened and terraced along the banks, allowing floodwaters to flow out to the wetlands quickly so businesses can clean up sooner. This flood that happened just before New Year's Eve was a lot of water. I think more water than I've ever seen come through Napa. Much more than the past floods that I've lived through. It came through and flooded nearly every neighborhood, many that hadn't been flooded in the past. But by midnight it had receded down and the streets were starting to clear up. And by the next morning we came back and saw that we just need to spray it down, wash it up and get ready to see business continue. For the Napa River Flood Project to become reality, it was necessary for the community to come together and discover a common interest. A healthy river as a centerpiece of 21st century Napa. Our flood project is a collaboration effort community-wide. People knew we flooded, they knew there were problems with flooding and the core came in and did a design and it was one of the older designs that had walls and cement. And the people of the community said that doesn't feel like the right option for us. We think there's another way to do it. So the groups, the natural groups, the wildlife and fishing game got together along with people that were interested in the community and economic interest. And they said is there a way to design this project to make the community safe that also will give us these other amenities. When we started with the new design with the Living River concept, we realized that it was going to be a major project. Because it was land intensive allowing the river to flow out, we were going to have to spend quite a bit of money acquiring lands, demolishing some buildings and properties in downtown. The business community was very alert to that but became very supportive as they saw the benefits that were going to take place. Many times people will go to the cheaper alternative and I have to say at this point biting the bullet when we did and starting to acquire lands that would allow this project to go forward was the best thing we did. And that's where they came up with the coalition process, brought all these groups together, created a design, worked with the core, were able to get it approved by the core. And then the real test for us was we had to go to the voters to ask for a half cent sales tax in order to fund our portion of the project. I think whenever you pass a sales tax and you're asking people to tax themselves that you have to make a very good case for your project and to show them the project you have is designed for them and will work for them. We ended up having a special election and the voters passed it and we're building it now. Part and parcel to having a very dynamic project like this flood control project is the attention that it has gotten from not only business owners and investors from the Napa area but also actually worldwide to come in and look at building new restaurants, hotels, office buildings and everything. We were in definitely a downward spiral before we really put our grips around flood control and decided to do something about it. So the benefits to the city are going to be astronomical and to the community it's going to provide a wonderful asset that will be a long-term attraction to the improvement of the whole downtown core. Measure A I think was successful because we were able to show the community that along with their funds that they were going to tax themselves for that we also were going to be able to have the funds from the Corps of Engineers to build the project and then we'd also incorporated funds from FEMA that were also going to help us incorporate in order to have the right project for our community. So that was a message that everybody could hear, could feel was the right one and they voted for it because they knew we had other partners. We're also standing at the confluence of the Napa River Napa Creek. FEMA gave a grant to the city of Napa to acquire six homes on Napa Creek and those homes have been acquired and demolished and they would have had three feet of flood water inside the houses if they had flooded and in about 2009 the Corps of Engineers has scheduled to come in and excavate terraces along Napa Creek as they've done along the Napa River. There's also two large culverts that are double 8 by 12 which will carry about half of the water in Napa Creek during the 100 year event. They also have replacement of several bridges. The Baron Street Bridge which is notorious for causing a lot of flooding in the area will be replaced with a pedestrian bridge which would be higher and allow the water to pass underneath. And then the other half of the flow would go down a culvert which cuts off the Oxbow area. Now this is going to be the key component because it will be dry most of the time allowing the community to use this as a very nice recreational amenity. Only when it rains and the flood waters reach a certain level will the water come over more or less a weir at the head end of the Oxbow bypass channel and then it will rush down the bypass and enter the river. This is such a key component because it was right there in the middle of the downtown where the river would start flooding, sheet flooding across and head into our entire business district. And the flood we had in January, the water was up less than 24 hours. The last flood we had in 86 that was up for three days makes such a difference when the citizens can get out and clean up right away. The cost of the 2005-2006 New Year's Eve storm damage was $114 million. Flood and storm damages in 1986 cost the city $185 million. Loss is avoided as a result of the mitigation projects totaled in excess of $70 million. One of the things that happens when you flood and you work with the FEMA program is they ask you to go through and create disaster plans and work together. That's been wonderful because we make departments plan together our public works department, our police, our fire. In terms of Living River concept and hazard mitigation what we would recommend is that the agencies work with the communities, flood control districts, resource agencies, federal government to come up with a plan that will not rely on high flood walls and levees that need to be maintained and can be vulnerable. Having a project like ours that's taken some years to finish people want to see progress and one of the things we've been able to show them is with some of the FEMA grants that we've been able to do some things ahead of the flood control project itself getting there. So we've been able to raise some homes out of danger. We've been able to do some other projects and people feel good like we're moving ahead. The Napa River project has given a whole new lease to this community. There's no question about it. We can put in nice amenities that people will want to come down and enjoy and it also makes it a wonderful experience for the people who live here. So it's having a number of impacts not just economic, there's the social impacts and then there's the environmental impacts which a living river can bring. The City of Napa has designed a new strategy to solve an old and pervasive problem and the results speak volumes about mitigation practices in this dynamic region. The river and the river town are learning a new way to live together.