Two breaks along Cosumnes River that flooded Highway 99 traced to private land owner, county has no jurisdiction to repair
SACRAMENTO — No government agency is taking the lead to repair two breaks along the Cosumnes River that flooded Highway 99 and Dillard Road over the weekend in the Wilton area, CBS13 learned Monday.
Flooding there led to dozens of water rescues through Monday morning, 20 stranded cars on Highway 99 Saturday night, and one reported death on Dillard Road after a car was swept away in rushing floodwater.
"This is unfortunately a situation where we had a fatality that is out of our control," said Sacramento County spokesperson Matt Robinson on Monday.
Our team reached out to multiple agencies, including Sacramento County, to ask why, as another strong storm is expected to move in Wednesday, the two breaks that leaders say caused the flooding are not being fixed.
Initially, Robinson told CBS13 the local irrigation district was handling the two repairs, but our team broke the news to him that it is not the irrigation district's land. It is private land that belongs to a local farmer, which Robinson later confirmed was true.
So our question to the county remained: who is fixing those two breaks?
"It is truly the decision of the farmer and not the county," Robinson said Monday night.
We also asked if the county has been in touch with the farmer to talk about repairs to the river breaks on their land. Robinson said the owner has not yet reached out to the county for help.
"We do not have the ability right now nor the staffing to go to that property owner. We are worried about other issues, trying to make sure we can assist other emergencies in the county," said Robinson in defense of the county not reaching out first to the land owner.
Robinson added that no agency regulates that land, the levees or berms constructed by the property's owner to prevent water from impacting their surrounding farmland. Therefore, no agency can go onto the land to make the needed fixes.
"It's up to the farmer to ask for help," said Robinson.
When CBS13 suggested the county has a responsibility to protect the public from more flooding on Dillard Road and Highway 99, the county referred us to Caltrans, as the state owns Highway 99.
But Caltrans told CBS13 it is not their jurisdiction either to confront a private property owner about issues originating on their land, they can only shut down the road if there is more flooding.
We spoke Monday with a levee expert Michael Bessett, executive director of the Sutter Butte flood control agency. Besset said because the break is on private land, he doesn't either know which agency should take control.
"In that case, I don't know who would be responsible for maintaining and making repairs to that type of system," said Bessett. "It's gonna require massive amounts of material like soils and rock and sand to fill in that breach. Basically, you are outing a bandaid on it right now and come back in the spring and make proper repairs."
CBS13 was out on the ground Monday with Reclamation District 800 as it worked to repair four different breaks in its levees east of Wilton Road.
Breaks they say flooded farmland, but caused no damage to homes or businesses.
CBS13 wanted to contact the farmer who owns the land where the flooding originated, but we have not yet identified the property owner.
We asked Sacramento County leaders: is there nothing that can be proactively done to try to prevent this flooding from happening again this week?
"Our staffs are stretched and we are handling a lot of different irons in the fire right now, for us to pull staff from one emergency would put something else in danger," Robinson answered.
We took these questions to the state Monday, asking the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services what can be done and when the state would step in in a matter of public safety.
A spokesperson told CBS13 late Monday that they weren't yet aware of protocol concerning when their agency could take control in a situation involving a private land owner, but they are aware of the two breaks along the Cosumnes and are prepared to step in if Sacramento County asks for state assistance in the matter.