US Congressman Doug Ose has endorsed the US Bureau of Reclamation's US$179.2M project to raise the height of Folsom dam to provide the Sacramento area with greater flood protection.
When completed, the height increase would add 117Mm3 of flood storage capacity to the Folsom reservoir, lowering the risk of a devastating flood in any given year to one in 213 – generally referred to as a 213-year flood.
When ongoing work on levees and new outlets on Folsom dam are completed, Sacramento would have roughly 140-year protection.
Although the construction of the proposed Auburn dam facility is considered a superior engineering solution to the mini-raise of the Folsom dam, its massive cost and opposition by environmental groups has deterred the construction of Auburn.