Senate-Passed Bill Includes $1 Billion for Santa Ana River

A billion-dollar project to control flooding on the Santa Ana River got a major boost Wednesday with approval by the U.S. Senate of a massive public works bill.

In passing the bill, the Senate endorsed construction of $12 billion worth of dams, harbors, levees and other projects across the country, including $1.087 billion to curb flooding along the Santa Ana River.

The Santa Ana River flood control plan is the most expensive of the more than 180 projects authorized for construction by the Senate. It is designed to handle what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers calls the most serious flood threat west of the Mississippi River.

Army engineers have estimated that a major flood of the river, which runs through heavily developed areas, could kill 3,000 people and cause $14 billion in damage in Orange County alone.

The flood control project calls for widening and deepening the river channel in Orange County, raising Prado Dam near Corona and building a new dam north of Mentone in San Bernardino County.

Reconciliation Work

Public Works committees of the House and Senate must now confer and agree on a bill that reconciles the different versions passed by the House and Senate. The House earlier passed a bill authorizing more projects than the Senate version and carrying a larger price tag, approximately $20 billion, a figure which the Reagan Administration said was too large for approval by the President.

“The (committee) conference is definitely going to be critical for us,” said James McConnell, Orange County’s lobbyist in Washington.

“The next crucial and critical step is going to be getting the House conferees to agree to knock out a lot of these projects, which of course will alienate a lot of the House members whose projects are knocked out and who supported the bill the first time around,” McConnell said.

“But if the bill is going to be signed by the President, it has to be trimmed down. And it’s going to be a delicate balancing act to come up with a bill that satisfies as many House members as possible and can still be signed by the President. It’s going to be a very fine line that the House members are going to walk there.”

Election Considerations

One problem is that all seats in the House are up for grabs in this year’s election, and congressmen hoping for reelection will be trying to bring new projects to their districts.

The Senate package, approved on a voice vote, also would authorize more than $353 million for other flood and navigation projects in Northern California. The final bill will represent the first major legislation in a decade authorizing a broad outline of federally financed water projects across the country.

If President Reagan signs a final bill, Congress will still have to fund the federal share of the projects, which is expected to range from 65% to 75%.

Orange County, which will be the major beneficiary of the massive project extending from the Santa Ana River mouth at Huntington Beach to the headwaters at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, will pay the majority of the local costs, estimated at more than $250 million.

Carl Nelson, director of public works in Orange County’s Environmental Management Agency, said Senate passage of the bill “is probably the biggest milestone in many years” for the project.

U.S. Army engineers, flood control specialists and politicians in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have been discussing the need for greater protection from a Santa Ana River flood for 20 years.

The talk grows louder and more urgent in years of greater rainfall, such as 1983. But getting money from Congress and the President has always been a problem, complicated by periodic squabbling among the counties.

Brown’s Opposition

Last year, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside) threatened to kill the project on the grounds that design plans were not final. He compared going forward without having final plans to “agreeing to have a house built without first knowing the style of roof or effectiveness of that roof.”

But other House members, arguing that a divided congressional delegation would have no chance of competing for limited funds with representatives of other states unified in backing their own projects, said Brown was simply exacting political revenge.

The other congressmen said Brown was angry at Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R--Fullerton) and Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) for campaigning for Brown’s opponent in the last congressional election.

Brown has since muted his opposition to the project, which also was beset by San Bernardino opposition.

Residents near Mentone objected to building a dam there, forcing proponents of the project to find a site about four miles upstream from Mentone in upper Santa Ana Canyon. The 550-foot-high dam will be about $100 million cheaper than the proposed Mentone dam, McConnell said, reducing what was a $1.2-billion project to just under $1.1 billion.

Other Projects Listed

Nelson said the county was still hoping for a separate congressional appropriation of more than $3 million to continue planning studies for the project. He estimated that if the project is approved, money appropriated and land acquired, construction might begin in 1989.

Other California projects that would be authorized by the Senate legislation are:

- $125 million to deepen and widen the Sacramento River Deepwater Ship Channel from Avon to the Port of Sacramento.

- $84 million to improve flood control along the Redbank and Fancher creeks in Fresno County, and $30.7 million to finance flood prevention work in the Cache Creek basin 90 miles north of San Francisco.

- Nearly $114 million to improve harbors in Oakland and Richmond along San Francisco Bay.

In addition to reducing the federal share of water costs from the current 95% to between 65% and 75%, the measure would increase barge fuel taxes and port and harbor user fees to raise money.

Bob Secter reported from Washington and John Needham from Orange County.