WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will tour the Sacramento, Calif., area to see if federal help is needed to prevent a Katrina-style disaster there, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday.

Schwarzenegger said Chertoff made the commitment during a meeting in which Schwarzenegger pressed him to support a federal disaster declaration for Sacramento's fragile river and delta levee system. On Friday, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for the levees to try to get quick funding to repair them.

"He said that he will help, that he will look into it," Schwarzenegger told The Associated Press in an interview. "He has committed to come to California to take a tour with me."

"It's always easier if you see it," said Schwarzenegger, who toured the levees by helicopter several days before issuing the disaster declaration.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin delta covers 738,000 acres and is the source of drinking water for 22 million Californians and of irrigation for Central Valley farmers. About 1,600 miles of federal-state levees protect the delta, much of which is below sea level, and the rivers that flow in and out of it.

Because of weaknesses in the levees -- some built more than 100 years ago -- there are fears that an earthquake or flood could cause catastrophic flooding.

Schwarzenegger's state emergency declaration identified 24 critically eroded sites that are expected to take $75 million to $100 million to repair. In a letter Schwarzenegger gave Monday to President Bush, he said the federal share was expected to exceed $56 million.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said there may be legal barriers to the federal government granting Schwarzenegger's request for a disaster declaration, "but we're going to take a very careful look at the specific request." Knocke declined to describe the potential barriers, but the federal law under which the president can declare disaster areas in states is normally used after -- not before -- disaster strikes.

In the case of Hurricane Katrina, though, Bush issued a disaster declaration two days before the storm hit Louisiana.

Schwarzenegger and Chertoff also discussed the need to ensure that the federal government would be prepared to respond to a disaster in the nation's most populous state.

In response to requests from Democratic senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, Chertoff has said the federal government has no specific plan to respond to a catastrophic earthquake in California.

Such a scenario would be covered by the government's national response plan, Chertoff said earlier this month in a letter to Boxer, and beyond that states are responsible for developing their own plans.

Source: Associated Press