Governor Newsom Signs Executive Order to Prepare for the Next Wet Season

Published: Aug 04, 2023

WHAT TO KNOW: Governor Newsom signed an executive order to streamline levee repairs and debris removal to help local communities recover from flooding and prepare for the next wet season. This is the latest in a series of actions to protect communities and conserve water from record rain and snowfall.

SACRAMENTO – In anticipation of another possible wet season with record rain and snowfall, Governor Gavin Newsom today signed an executive order that will expedite critical work like levee repairs and debris removal to help protect and prepare communities.

A copy of the executive order can be found here.

WHY IT IS NEEDED: This year’s historic winter storms damaged levees and left debris in river channels that exacerbate the risk of flooding next winter – damaged levees provide less protection from high water flows, and debris and vegetation within river channels reduce capacity to move high water flows.

WHAT IT WILL DO: By acting now, the executive order allows affected communities to accelerate work to restore levee function and river channel capacity degraded by last winter’s storms and floods. More specifically, the executive order:

HOW WE GOT HERE: This action builds on the series of measures Governor Newsom has taken to protect communities from flooding while replenishing California’s groundwater and storage.

Leveraging the more than $8.6 billion committed by Governor Newsom and the Legislature in the last two budget cycles to build water resilience, the state is continuing to take aggressive action to prepare for the impacts of climate-driven extremes in weather on the state’s water supplies.

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