Politicians across the state are demanding major water projects in the Delta, but basic repairs on its vast network of levees have come to a standstill.

State reimbursement for levee projects completed as far back as 2007 has been stalled by the budget crisis. This means flood-control districts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have not been able to pay back loans they took out for those projects or to finance new projects.

As a result, almost no levee repairs are getting done in the Delta this year. One levee engineer told The Bee as much as 15 miles of levee repairs have been stalled. Any of these levee segments could become the next failure that plunges the state into an even more desperate water crisis.

"As we look to the long-term future of the California Delta, we can't overlook necessary fixes that need to be done right now," said Jonas Minton, a senior project manager at the Planning and Conservation League and former deputy director of flood management at the state Department of Water Resources.

Delta levees don't just protect farmland. They also serve as the Delta's plumbing system, channeling fresh water from the Sacramento River to state and federal water diversion pumps near Tracy.

The levees also help prevent tidal saltwater from mixing with that fresh water, which serves 23 million Californians via two massive canal systems.

The state budget mess has also stalled surveys to find hidden vulnerabilities on about 100 miles of Delta levees.

These surveys employ an innovative and affordable new technique that uses an electromagnetic sensor towed behind an all-terrain vehicle. It allows engineers to "see inside" levees down to a depth of 30 feet to find weak soils, old pipes, beaver dens and other threats.

Argus Technologies of West Sacramento developed the system and has at least a dozen levee districts lined up to use it, said Mara Johnson, a senior scientist with the company.

The surveys could allow levee districts to find and remove hazards before they cause a flood. But a state fund that subsidizes the work has been bottled up by the state's budget crisis.

Such surveys might have prevented a Delta levee break five years ago, on June 3, 2004. That break, on the Upper Jones Tract near Stockton, flooded 12,000 acres and required water-export pumps to be shut down for two days, risking shortages for millions of Californians.

The flood was eventually blamed on either a beaver den in the levee or porous soils that caused seepage. Both can be detected by the Argus surveys and then quickly repaired.

In fact, a federal grant prompted by the Upper Jones Tract flood helped pay for surveys on eight Delta islands. More than 150 hazards were found inside these levees, including two old fuel tanks, three 55-gallon drums, six beaver excavations, eight concrete structures, and 87 old pipes.

These hazards were quickly targeted and removed. But about 60 levee-protected Delta islands remain to be surveyed.

"The idea is, any one of these could have led to a failure," Johnson said. "We're hoping to refute the notion that levee breaks are random and unpredictable."

The state supports this kind of work because it recognizes that Delta levees serve more than just the farmland they encircle. The levees also help convey drinking water to millions of Californians.

A key state financing tool is the awkwardly named "subventions fund." It requires a local funding match from levee districts, which then borrow to pay the bulk of project costs and are later reimbursed by the state to pay off the loans.

The goal is to help the districts raise and strengthen levees to meet a minimum Army Corps of Engineers standard for agricultural levees, called the PL 84-99 standard.

Of 1,100 miles of levees in the Delta, more than 600 miles don't meet this standard. The cost to comply – often more than $1 million per levee mile – is beyond the reach of most levee districts.

"This whole year – this spring and summer construction season – is pretty much toast," said Gilbert Cosio of MBK Engineers in Sacramento, which represents many Delta levee districts. "We could have had probably 10 to 15 miles of work done up to a very reliable standard. It's going to take years to get there, and we essentially missed a full year of work."

Yet the districts are still waiting for subventions reimbursements dating back two years, to June 2007, totaling about $20 million, said Cosio.

Meanwhile, no funding has been made available for this year, and planning has also been delayed for 2010 projects, said Gil Labrie, a levee engineer in Walnut Grove.

"At this point, these districts are hung out to dry for two years," said Labrie. "We're borrowing to survive, which means we're not going to be maintaining the (levee) system like it should be."

Mike Mirmazaheri, manager of the Delta levees program at the state Department of Water Resources, said standard funding agreements with the levee districts stipulate that reimbursement is made when funding is available.

"I sympathize, but … at this point in time the funding is not available because of the dire situation we are in," he said.

Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264.