184 







duction of flood damages.' The experts 

 recommended greater use of nonstruc- 

 tural means of reducing damages, such 

 as floodplain zoning, flood proofing, 

 and relocation of structures, and sug- 

 gested that a wider range of project 

 sizes be considered. They also recom- 

 mended that the design of projects be 

 based on more complete data on the 

 watershed and on broader social, envi- 

 ronmental, and economic objectives. 

 In 1962, the Harvard Water Program 

 published Design of Water-Resource 

 Systems' which presented the recom- 

 mendations of the best available exper- 

 tise on how to improve federal water- 

 project planning policy. One of the 

 document's most important recom- 

 mendations was to base planning on 

 multiple objectives, such as economic 

 growth, regional income distribution, 

 and environmental quality, rather than 

 on the construction of single-purpose 

 engineering works. 5 



In 1968, the Army Corps of Engi- 

 neers issued a report that presented sev- 

 eral different flood-control plans, but 

 no plan was recommended for imple- 

 mentation because the foreseen bene- 

 fits of the project did not pass the fed- 

 eral cost-benefit test. The only benefits 

 the federal government recognizes in a 

 cost-benefit analysis are tied to the val- 

 ues of the structures in the flood-haz- 

 ard area that would receive protection. 

 In North Richmond, the substandard 

 housing — some of it just cardboard 





boxes — was not valuable enough to 

 justify a project. 



Multi-Objective Planning 

 in the 1970s 



The National Environmental Policy 

 Act of 1969 required the federal gov- 

 ernment to establish a process for the 

 public review of the impacts of federal 

 projects. (For more details on this law, 

 see Lynton K. Caldwell's article begin- 

 ning on page 6 of this issue.) In 1974, a 

 new Water Resources Development 

 Act required the consideration of non- 

 structural alternatives in flood-control 

 planning, and revisions to the federal 

 Water Resources Council's principles 

 and standards made between 1973 and 

 1979 integrated environmental and so- 

 cial objectives into the cost-benefit 

 analysis of proposed water projects. 



Earlier, however, HUD had started 

 the Model Cities Program for urban re- 

 newal, and, by 1971, a plan for Rich- 

 mond was developed that featured 

 Wildcat and San Pablo creeks and the 

 San Pablo Bay shoreline as a recrea- 

 tional and commercial resource to 

 serve as a focus for the redevelopment 

 of the area (see Figure 2 on page 16)." 

 The Richmond Model Cities Plan called 

 for HUD to take flood control off the 

 shelf, and HUD proceeded to contract 

 for a privately prepared economic anal- 

 ysis of a flood-control project. 7 Eleven 

 years after the first federal studies 



Bulldozers dig a basin to trap sediment 

 from Wildcat Creek. Without the trap, 

 sedimentation would harm the 

 marshland habitat downstream. (Photo- 

 Dob Walker) 



began, political momentum succeeded 

 in overcoming the difficulty of the cost- 

 benefit analysis; HUD's consultants 

 considered future project benefits and 

 potential recreational benefits and 

 made the numbers work. 



With new, favorable cost-benefit 

 formulas from HUD's consultants, the 

 corps of engineers conducted a plan- 

 ning process that reflected the pres- 

 sures of the 1970s to increase public 

 participation in project planning and 

 produced a new, community-support- 

 ed flood-control plan that was author- 

 ized by Congress in 1976. A case study 

 written on this phase of the Wildcat- 

 San Pablo flood-control project, Can 

 Organizations Change?, praised the 

 corps' first effort to accommodate the 

 needs of a poverty-stricken area." The 

 corps based its planning on the multiple 

 objectives of the Richmond Model Cit- 

 ies Plan, which focused on social well- 

 being, environmental quality, and eco- 

 nomic redevelopment. The project 

 benefits included protection of existing 

 and future development, the expected 

 increase in market value of the project 

 area, and recreational benefits. North 

 Richmond residents involved in the 

 project planning during this era were 

 complimentary of the corps' planning 

 process and sensitivity to community 

 needs.' 



The corps of engineers considered 

 including an Environmental Quality 

 Plan among its project alternatives. Al- 

 though they did not choose the Envi- 

 ronmental Quality Plan as the Recom- 

 mended Plan, neither did they choose 

 the National Economic Development 

 (NED) Plan, which was a single-objec- 

 tive plan to reduce flood damages. The 

 NED Plan maximized the difference 

 between costs and benefits for a project 

 designed to provide protection against 

 the 100-year flood (that is, a flood of 

 such magnitude that it is likely to occur 

 only once in 100 years). The Recom- 



December 1989 



