Offbeat Russian Roulette

Congressional voting on the MX missile and other urgent issues understandably overshadows other legislation. But Orange County should keep its eye on one little-noticed measure that was introduced recently--HR-6, an omnibus water-project bill.

The bill is not entirely new. It contains some projects, like the flood-protection plan for the Santa Ana River, that have been before Congress before. The problem is that Congress hasn’t been passing such measures.

In fact, it has been 13 years since a measure authorizing construction of new water-resource projects has received the congressional stamp of approval. We hope that this is the year in which another one, including authorization for the Santa Ana River flood-protection project, finally makes it.

The effort to bring the needed flood-control improvements to the Santa Ana River, which runs from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, has been dragging along for about 20 years. The three counties involved--Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino--are in agreement on the All River project, which will cost more than $1 billion.

Congressmen from all three counties see the project as a bipartisan issue, and are supporting federal approval of the project. Money was appropriated in the current budget, and $4 million more is included in their proposed 1986 fiscal year budget to continue planning and design work.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is one of the strongest supporters of the project, saying that the Santa Ana River poses the most serious potential flooding problem in the Western United States. Statistically, according to the corps’ estimates, Orange County stands a better-than-even chance of being hit with a major storm that could overcome the county’s outdated and inadequate flood-control protection and put at least 10 cities in this county alone under water, with damage estimated at around $13 billion--and maybe with as many as 1,000 lives lost.

Continuing to run that risk by playing Russian roulette with the rainy seasons makes little sense. The federal government is quick to provide disaster-relief funds when major floods strike. It would make much more sense not to be so slow in approving the flood-protection projects designed to avoid such damage and loss of life.