Now, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency projects it will need $576 million, a 39 percent increase.

"Costs have gone up because the magnitude of the project has gone up," said Stein Buer, SAFCA's executive director.

Originally, the agency planned to raise the existing levee along Garden Highway in the northern part of the Natomas Basin. Instead, SAFCA decided late last year it would build a new levee parallel to and behind the old one. New U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulations for protecting riverside vegetation drove the change, Buer said.

full article...