Beginning in the fall of 2009, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' chosen contractor began making repairs to sections of the Santa Maria River Levee. The official groundbreaking ceremony was October 19, 2009. The levee was designed and built by the Army Corps of Engineers from 1959 to 1963 and is owned and operated by the County of Santa Barbara Department of Public Works' Flood Control District. The City of Santa Maria does not own or operate or maintain the levee.

The levee is built of river sand and extends for 17 miles along the south side of the Santa Maria River from Fugler's Point to the Highway 1 Bridge. The Levee also consists of a 5-mile-long portion on the north side of the river, between the Highway 101 bridge and the Highway 1 bridge. The levee provides flood protection to the Santa Maria Valley and to the City of Santa Maria. The portion of the levee facing the river is covered with a layer of rock.

Following the Hurricane Katrina Disaster in August 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers began a systematic assessment of flood control structures and facilities throughout the United States to measure their risk of potential failure. After its assessment of the Santa Maria River Levee, in March 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers placed the Santa Maria River Levee on the nationwide list of levees at risk of failure and declined to certify that it could withstand a 100-year flood. Subsequent to that, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) then began preparing revised flood maps. Preliminary results of FEMA's effort appears to place most of the City and a large portion of the Santa Maria Valley in the 100-year flood zone which likely will lead to mandatory flood insurance for thousands of property owners.

While the Flood Control District of the County of Santa Barbara is the agency responsible for the condition of the Levee and not the City of Santa Maria, the City has nonetheless taken the initiative and a leadership role in urging County, State and Federal leaders to make critical repairs to strengthen the Levee. The City has worked in conjunction with the County Flood Control District to stockpile rock to assist in the event of a breach. Consequently, the restoration of the Santa Maria River Levee is one of the most vital issues to the community's future.

The Army Corps' December 2008 Design Deficiency Report states, "Because of the unanticipated failure mode in the original design, the residents of Santa Maria are at a higher flood risk than they should be and will be paying flood insurance as if the levee does not exist. The federal government has the responsibility to correct this deficiency and provide the residents of Santa Maria the flood protection they were promised by Congress in 1954."

Following an extensive alternatives analysis, the Army Corps has chosen to strengthen an approximate 6.5-mile reach of the existing south levee with sheet pile and soil cement revetment. As currently designed, soil cement would be applied to the levee face and levee toe along the majority of the proposed Project reach (approximately 6.2 miles), and would transition to sheet pile for the remaining 1,700 feet of the Project area (the upstream extent of the Project area at Bradley Canyon).