In West Sacramento, crews are drilling through an earthen levee—not far from homes and businesses-- to collect soil samples from as far as 100-feet down…. Les Harder with the Department of Water Resources says taking samples and analyzing them to see if the soil is strong enough to support the structures—and subsequently protect the communities nearby from flooding-- is the first step to determining the work ahead… 

 “What’s the level of the problem we face, how many defects are there? Where are they? How extensive are they? What will it take to remediate them?” 

Harder says thousands of samples will be taken and the assessment will likely take a few years. The money for drilling and testing is coming from legislation that appropriates 500 million dollars from the general fund.  More than thirty critical levee sites have already been repaired and more such urgent work will continue through flood season