Water Woes Plague Building : Digging to Dry Out at South Bay Jail

There’s a leak at the South County Regional Center in Chula Vista, but it’s not the sort of problem that county supervisors lose sleep about.

It’s just a hidden drip, drip, drip that, over the years, has undermined patio areas of the imposing building, inundated the below-ground sally port at the County Jail with an ooze of muddy water, and bored a room-sized hole along underground foundations of the structure.

The county, which has been plagued by the watery intrusion since before the South Bay structure was dedicated in March, 1982, has counterattacked, hiring the civil engineering firm of Klagge Stevens & Associates to remedy the problem that is eroding soil along the walls of the underground jail.

County workers at the jail watched this week while work-release conscripts dug around the foundations and under the paving stones to determine the damage wrought by the unseen infiltrator.

Excavations around the building, located at Third Avenue and H Street, so far have turned up “a massive cavern” about 10 feet square underneath the sidewalk near the intersection of the two streets, as well as several smaller cavities, according to Klagge Stevens engineer Mick Williams. Other, smaller washed-out areas were located around the sides and base of the three underground levels of the building, which serves as a county jail and Sheriff’s Department offices.

Sheriff’s Lt. Walter Patroskey said that the security at the South Bay lockup is not threatened by the exterior erosion, although the seepage does contribute to the dankness of the underground detention quarters.

Williams is optimistic that the $25,000 survey his firm is conducting for the county will turn up both the causes and the cures for the problem. He estimates that filling the underground cavities, reinforcement of retaining walls and correction of drainage in the area can be accomplished at the relatively minor cost of “less than $500,000.”

Chief suspect in the underground erosion mystery is the complex’s landscaping irrigation system. In the past, Williams said, main waterlines to the system have broken, sending gallons of unwanted water into the soil around the building and washing out fill materials around the sides of the structure.

“They just seem to be watering much too much, for some reason, and that is causing the problem,” Williams said. He also is eyeing a decorative fountain, a massive “water sculpture” gracing the northern entrances to the regional center, as a possible suspect. The $150,000 sculpture, designed by Northern California artist Angela Danadjieva, shows considerable cracking, and may have contributed to the erosion before its waterworks were shut off several weeks ago, Williams said.

Harold Coleman, project engineer for the county, said that the consulting engineers are scheduled to present a full report, along with recommendations on ending the erosion problem, in about two weeks. George Thrower, South County Regional Center building maintenance superintendent, said that the erosion was “more of a nuisance than a problem” and has been around since before the building was completed.

Newspaper accounts of the South County Jail opening in early 1982 noted that the lower of the three underground jail levels was unusable at first because ground water seepage through the concrete flooring made the jail level too damp for habitation until walls and flooring could be sealed.

Thrower said the worst problem, which resulted in a 10-foot-deep cavity along one retaining wall, was caused when a pressurized irrigation line broke, forcing water and soil down into the below-ground driveway to the jail.

He said the subterranean portion of the building extends 45 feet below ground level and that “it’s not unusual (that) there have been subsoil moisture problems, considering that parts of the building are probably below sea level.”