South El Monte : 1 Hospital Site Ruled Out

A South El Monte property has been removed from consideration as the site for a county hospital because engineers said the land could be flooded in a severe rainstorm.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to eliminate the property--at the intersection of Santa Anita Avenue and the Pomona (60) Freeway--from a list of possible homes for the East Valley Medical Center.

The action leaves three sites--one in Pico Rivera, another in the City of Industry and unincorporated land near Whittier--as possible locations for the proposed 334-bed hospital that is supposed to serve the San Gabriel Valley and parts of Southeast Los Angeles County.

Since residents in the three communities remaining on the list have all opposed the medical center, the supervisors also asked the county Department of Health Services to look for a fourth location.

The removal of the South El Monte site from consideration follows a report to the board last month by the Army Corps of Engineers that the hospital could be threatened in severe storms. The land is part of the Whittier Narrows Flood Control Basin.