Senate OKs Funds for Flood Control of Santa Ana River

In what one federal official called a “major milestone” toward protection of densely populated Orange County, the Senate on Thursday cleared the way for construction to begin next spring on the long-delayed Santa Ana River flood control project.

Senate approval of an $18.4-billion energy and water bill that includes $20 million for the massive public works venture was greeted with jubilation by Orange County officials.

“Obviously, we’re relieved and delighted,” said County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish. “We had reason to anticipate and hope that this was the year it would happen.”

The Army Corps of Engineers, which will supervise the extensive channel widening and dam building along the 100-mile river, has identified the Santa Ana River basin as the largest single flood threat west of the Mississippi River. The flood control work eventually is expected to cost $1.4 billion.

In the kind of major flood that occurs every 200 years, a rising Santa Ana River could kill as many as 3,000 people and cause as much as $11 billion in property damage, the corps has estimated. The Santa Ana runs from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Pacific Ocean between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

The Senate’s action Thursday “certainly is a major milestone,” said David C. Kenyon of the corps.

Added James F. McConnell, the county’s Washington lobbyist: “This is something that everyone has been working towards, depending on how you want to count it, for 10 or 20 or 30 years.”

The House already has approved a slightly different--and more expensive--version of the legislation for the 1990 fiscal year, with the same sum for the Santa Ana project. The White House has said that the President will sign the bill that emerges from a congressional conference committee.

Although the corps does not plan to award the first contract until next spring, the county can begin as early as Oct. 1 spending the $120 million in matching money it has set aside for acquisition of land and rights-of-way, McConnell said.

McConnell cautioned that the initial $20-million appropriation does not guarantee that the federal government, pinched by a continuing budget crisis, will continue to fully finance the Santa Ana project in coming years. In four or five years, McConnell noted, the corps expects that it will be asking the White House and Congress for $100 million a year to pay for construction on a list of projects.

“All of us . . . have to be vigilant over the next number of years to ensure that the funding continues, and at a meaningful level,” McConnell said.

Kenyon, chief of the corps’ western programs division in the directorate of civil works, appeared more optimistic. “Historically, once the federal government has committed to a project, the appropriations continue to complete the project,” he said.

The federal government’s share of the overall project cost is expected to total slightly more than $1 billion. Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties together will be required to spend $365 million. Because Orange County will benefit most from the project, its share will be the greatest, perhaps as much as $250 million.

The $20 million appropriated for the coming fiscal year will allow the corps to begin building a new dam in San Bernardino County, to be known as the Seven Oaks Dam; let contracts for other preliminary design and engineering work, and acquire wetlands near the mouth of the Santa Ana River.

The wetlands are intended to provide protection for two birds--the California least tern and Belding’s savannah sparrow--whose habitats are likely to be disturbed by the project.

A contract to begin work on Seven Oaks Dam is scheduled to be awarded next April, according to corps officials.

In addition to building the new dam, the corps plans to raise the level of the existing Prado Dam in Riverside County by 36 feet, and upgrade flood channels along the river and Santiago Creek. Included would be major improvements to the Talbert Channel in Huntington Beach, where a 1983 failure caused widespread damage.