Panel Approves Bill Providing Funds for River Flood Control

A House-Senate conference committee has approved a $16-billion public works bill that would provide $1.09 billion to control the Santa Ana River, considered the worst potential flood threat west of the Mississippi, officials said Wednesday.

Reps. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) announced Wednesday that the committee had reconciled differences in House and Senate versions of the bill, paving the way for congressional approval of the first major water projects package in more than a decade.

Packard, one of the conferees, said the final draft of the legislation is “critical to the future of Orange County” and vowed to lobby for congressional and presidential approval for the “long overdue” action.

James McConnell, Orange County’s lobbyist in Washington, said the final bill apparently will authorize about $16 billion in lock, dam, port and flood-control projects, a compromise between the $20-billion bill the House approved last November and the $12-billion version the Senate approved in March.

The Santa Ana River flood project is the largest single item the bill would authorize. It would provide funds for the long-delayed project to control the usually dry river, site of two deluges in the last 20 years. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that another serious flood along its course through San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties could result in more than 3,000 deaths and $14 billion in damage in Orange County alone.

McConnell said the full House and Senate undoubtedly will approve the conference committee’s version of the bill before Congress adjourns this month.

McConnell also said he is optimistic that President Reagan, who had threatened to veto the bill if it were as expensive as the original House version, will now sign the bill. McConnell said Reagan Administration officials were involved in the negotiations that produced the conference committee bill.

Dornan said in a joint statement issued with Packard in Washington, “We’ve fought long and hard for this, and I will do everything in my power to see that President Reagan signs the authorization legislation once it clears Congress.” Packard and Dornan said the bill calls for $822 million in federal funds to be matched by $268 million in local and state funds for the Santa Ana River project, which is intended to provide protection against a flood of the magnitude that occurs about once every 170 years along the 90-mile-long river.

The original goal was to provide protection from a flood, but a proposed dam in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains near the community of Mentone was rejected in the face of stiff opposition from local leaders.

An alternative proposal, the so-called All-River plan, would entail building a 550-foot earth- and rock-filled dam about four miles upstream from Mentone in Upper Santa Ana Canyon, which is expected to cut $100 million from the price tag. The All-River plan also calls for increasing the holding capacity of Prado Dam by raising it 30 feet and widening and deepening the river channel through Orange County.

Of the three counties through which the river flows, Orange County is expected to bear the brunt of the local share of costs because it would be the major beneficiary of the project.

The original Senate version called for local governments to bear 35% of the cost of the project, but the conference committee version, like the House version, calls for a local contribution of 25%.

The 25% figure means “we’ve got an affordable project,” said Murray I. Storm, director of the county Environmental Management Agency.

Gov. George Deukmejian has signed into law a measure that will allow Orange County to begin raising its share of funds by as early as next year, through special tax assessments on property owners who could be threatened with flooding. Tax assessments ranging from $40 to $100 a year would be levied only after public hearings and approval by the Board of Supervisors.