Water Use Funding Is Drying Up : Congress: Local members of the House ask for nearly $7.6 million from appropriations subcommittee but are told they face tough competition.

Members of Congress from the Los Angeles area requested nearly $7.6 million in federal funds Wednesday for a variety of major water and recreation projects, but were bluntly told that they face tough competition.

“We’re in a heap of trouble,” Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), second-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, told the legislators. “The committee is $400 million short of what it needs to fund the President’s (budget) package.” The lawmakers appeared before the House panel on its annual “California Day.”

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) again went to bat for Mayor Tom Bradley’s plan to revitalize the Los Angeles River. The lawmaker asked for $300,000 next year for a feasibility study of the river’s recreational and environmental potential. The 18-month study is expected to cost $1.5 million, which would be split between the federal government and the city.

The 58-mile concrete-lined river begins in the San Fernando Valley and flows east along the northern base of the Santa Monica Mountains and past downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach. For decades, it has been used primarily for flood control by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Congress last year appropriated $1 million for such a study, but the corps, citing a conflict with its flood-control plans, reduced it to a $250,000 survey of 19 miles of the river. The corps also expressed pessimism about the potential for river restoration. Beilenson responded by asking the House panel Wednesday to include language in next year’s spending bill that would require the corps to survey the entire river.

Following February’s severe flooding in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, he also requested $500,000 to identify opportunities for increasing the water supply and conservation within the Los Angeles County Drainage Area. This could include such measures as widening the Los Angeles River and its tributaries upstream for flood control and ground water recharging. Beilenson said this would benefit the entire Los Angeles area.

In addition, Beilenson asked for $4.5 million to continue recreation improvements in the Sepulveda Basin and revitalize a two-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River in the basin. Congress has spent a total of $13.5 million, which the city has matched, to develop 160 acres as a park and 60 acres as a wildlife preserve.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) requested $2,285,000 to continue restoration of the Hansen Dam Recreation Area. The funds would be used to complete construction of a 15-acre swimming lake and to plan and design a 70-acre boating lake. The lakes are a key part of an Army Corps master plan to return the long-neglected site to its former glory as a popular recreational facility.

“This project is of enormous importance to me and to the people of the San Fernando Valley,” Berman said. “We have been working for many years to provide recreational facilities to this extremely underserved area.”

A 1986 bill earmarked earnings from a Hansen Dam dredging operation for restoration. Berman requested $167,000 from the dredging operation and $2.2 million as a direct federal appropriation.

Four Orange County congressmen and one from Riverside County also urged the subcommittee to continue funding for the $1.5-billion Santa Ana River flood-control project, which extends from the San Bernardino Mountains to the sea at Huntington Beach. Lawmakers cited the damage from February’s floods to support their request.