With California bracing for a wet winter, the state auditor warns that nearly a third of local agencies maintaining vital flood control levees in parts of the Central Valley have been performing “unacceptable routine maintenance” — some of them, for years. The audit says the state’s Department of Water Resources “has not followed state law requiring it to take over the maintenance of levees” when local agencies fail to do so — and urged it to start. But state water managers at the department pushed back, saying the audit “portrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the complexities of flood management” and draws too direct a link between routine maintenance and flood risk. Taking over maintenance can cost tens of millions of dollars up front “that must be weighed against other investments that may yield greater risk-reduction benefits,” the department said in a letter responding to the audit.