Just in time for a week of rain, the leaking Victoria Island Levee has been repaired.
“We are happy to announce that the repairs to the Victoria Island Levee are now complete,” the San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services announced this week on social media. “Over the past month, a seepage berm and pilings were successfully installed on the levee in coordination with the (California) Department of Water Resources.”
The agency added that the repairs stopped the seepage and made the levee stronger and more structurally stable.
The levee was found to be slumping along the Old River near Highway 4, between Stockton and Discovery Bay. Failure of the breakwater could have meant extensive damage to nearby agricultural lands, disruptions along Highway 4 and compromised drinking water sources, officials said.
The county declared a state of emergency in order to bring in state resources for a longer-term fix.
When the state began the job of shoring up the levee, it wasn’t expected to be a permanent fix. “This repair is basically to get it through this winter,” CDWR spokesman Jason Ince said in November.
Now that the levee work is done, it’s about to get tested. In what the National Weather Service is calling a return to “active weather,” an atmospheric river storm will douse greater Stockton beginning Friday morning, with rain likely continuing through at least Wednesday.
Forecasters say as much as 3.5 inches of rain could fall during that span.
A flood watch was issued for the Central Valley and adjacent foothills from noon Friday through 10 p.m. Sunday. The Delta and Valley areas could see 1-3 inches of rain, while the foothills could get 2-4 inches, the weather service said.