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Background During the Gold Rush. hydmulic mining Iva.'> widely used to \H/sh mvay hillsides and uncover veins of gold in the Sierra foothills. The resulting sedimelll floated downstream ((Ild clogged river channels, ccU/sing devastating .floods. Flood waters more tha/1 20feel dl'l'p were measured il1 down/own Sacramento during the flood (~f /862. 4 The first effort at flood control in California came in the form of small levees built to protect the town of Sacramento from what the American Indians called the "inland sea," which often covered the valley in winter. The first gold miners poled f1at.bottomed boats around the frequently flooded streets of Sacramento, During the flood of 1862, parts of downtown Sacramento were underneath 20 feet of water. Nineteenth century farmers in Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys also constructed levees to protect their farmland, Substantial government.sponsored flood manage- ment efforts did not begin until the late 1880s, The Yuba, Feather, American and Sacramento rivers, laden with sediment from hydraulic gold mining upstream, spilled over their banks and covered the Sacramento Valley, Hydraulic mining ripped apart entire hillsides with huge water cannons, choking the rivers with silt and greatly limiting the navigabil- ity of the rivers and intensifying the effects of floods, ~ ~ f Frightened by the ferocity of the floods, merchants, farmers and landowners combined forces and lobbied local, state and federal agencies for flood con. trol and improved navigability, . fJ Hydraulic mining was outlawed in 1884 by Judge Lorenzo Sawyer of the federal Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco. At the same time, the drive to keep the Sacramento River from flooding the Central Valley each winter and spring gained momentum. In 1893, the federal California Debris Commission was created by Congress to look into debris. related flood and navigation issues, primarily in the Sacramento Valley. During the commission's investigations, it uncovered a viable flood control plan devised in 1880 by State Engineer William Hammond Hall. The plan was SUbsequently modified to include a system of levees, weirs and bypass channels to improve navigability and protect population centers in the Sacramento Valley. In 1911, the state Reclamation Board (not related to the U,S, Bureau of Reclamation) was created to implement this plan, Alter a series of flood years in the Sacramento Valley, congressional authority for the Sacramento River Flood Control Project finally was granted in 1917, When California was building flood control structures, environmental issues were not taken into account. Decades later, society would put a high priority on preserving fish, wildlife and their habitat. It would also learn that activities that severely modified landscapes increased runoff and aggravated flood damage. ..... 'I, . ., ,t