Complaints Flood County as Rain Ditch Dug in Park

A deep trench dug by county workers to prevent flooding of El Toro Road has raised complaints from Laguna Beach residents who fear that it could lead to flooding in their neighborhoods if heavy rains return.

County officials said they had to dig the 600-foot-long trench in the pristine Aliso Woods Canyon Regional Park on Christmas weekend to channel rainwater because new housing developments uphill had hindered natural runoff patterns.

“The whole neighborhood down here is getting their life jackets, their wet boots and posting watches on the creek when it rains because we know we are doomed to be flooded,” said Sandy Lucas, a spokeswoman for the Laguna Canyon Property Owners Assn. The group consists of 100 homeowners who live downhill from the park, which is downhill from the new Aliso Viejo planned community.

Lucas called the trench--50 feet wide and nearly 3 feet deep--an eyesore in the 3,000-acre wooded preserve and said she and other residents were concerned that vegetation will not grow back.

County park officials said the trench was dug as an emergency channel to prevent traffic accidents on El Toro Road and assured residents that it would not flood them. They also said the gash in the park would eventually revegetate.

However, they warned that if rains continue and the road still floods, the trench may have to be widened.

Water standing 6 inches to 1 foot deep reportedly obstructed two parts of the road during heavy rains late last week, said Tim Miller, county manager of regional parks.

“Thankfully, no one got hurt,” Miller said Wednesday. “It was a great hazard.”

Miller said he and other county officials concluded that the flooding was apparently from excessive runoff flowing from upstream developments, including Laguna Audubon--a part of 20,000-home Aliso Viejo.

Miller said that El Toro Road had not flooded in the past and that the land, in its natural, wooded state, can absorb heavy rain. But the bulldozing of the past 2 years of trees, shrubs and grasses for Laguna Audubon has forced the rainwater to run off into the grassy flatlands of the park, where a creek bed is not large enough to funnel all the water down to the sea, Miller said.

Consequently, he said, the water flowed out into the road.

Kathryn Thompson, president of A & C Properties of Irvine, which is building Laguna Audubon, acknowledged that the community, along with such nearby developments as Club Laguna and Leisure World, contributes some runoff.

But she maintained that the creek had been clogged with weeds and other debris, preventing the runoff from flowing out to sea.

She added that she and other developers installed water retention basins and used sandbags to keep most of the water from flooding the lowlands.

The county was first alerted to the flooding problem Dec. 22 by Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank, who reported that water was “sheeting across” El Toro Road near its intersection with Laguna Canyon Road, Miller said. County officials were called to investigate because they own the parkland, which was the source of the runoff, and wanted to avoid accident liability.