More than ever, floods show why we need to invest in our water infrastructure.

As evacuation notices lift and Monterey County residents breathe a collective sigh of relief, growers across the county face months of cleanup from flooding. Early estimates show 20,000 acres were affected.

Floods are catastrophic for crops. Each flooded acre has to be evaluated for food safety. When the waters finally recede, many growers will destroy crops. Other flooded fields will have to lay fallow for 30-60 days, pushing back planting schedules.

Floods are not new. Devastation from flooding events has been recorded since 1862 and growers have called for measures to increase flood control for more than 100 years. In the 1950s, not leaving it to chance, growers in the Salinas Valley paid for the Monterey County Water Resources Agency to build the reservoirs at Lakes Nacimiento and San Antonio. Today, MCWRA is responsible for operating those two dams, and managing water resources for the Salinas Valley. When the agency was founded in 1947, it was called the Monterey County Flood Control and Water Conservation District and its mission was explicitly flood control. Yet these days, flood mitigation has taken a backseat to other needs.

This is dangerous. Climate change is increasing the severity and volatility of weather events. The swing from drought to flood carries serious risk. Without infrastructure investment, we cannot protect our residents, our land, our livelihoods and our ecosystem.

In the 1950s, growers tried to address flood management alone. Now, we need help. The impacts of flood control are a concern and liability for all residents in Monterey County. This problem affects access to the Monterey Peninsula, thousands of jobs and the food supply of our entire country.

That’s why a group of growers are calling for support from state and federal agencies to invest in critical infrastructure improvements. Needed repairs include replacing the spillway at Lake San Antonio, replacing multiple valves at both reservoirs, repairing drains, repairing the spillway bridge at Lake Nacimiento and more.

We must also build an interlake tunnel between the reservoirs. An environmental impact report was just released detailing that project, which would increase storage by 53,000 acre-feet per year and reduce the need for flood control releases. That is more relevant than ever. On Jan. 13, MCWRA had to increase reservoir releases to prevent overfilling Nacimiento reservoir. Every day since, those releases send water away from our reservoirs to the ocean – water that we should be storing for the future.

As many of us go back to driving across the Salinas River and take for granted the ability to travel to and from the Peninsula, remember the lesson of January’s floods. Our water infrastructure is failing. We need the County Board of Supervisors to bring urgency to state and federal partnerships to help fund these critical projects.

Cathy Alameda, George Fontes and Gary Tanimura are members of the Salinas Basin Water Alliance and growers and agricultural landowners in the Salinas Valley.