ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Time to Get the Message

It will take some time to sort out whether Serrano Irrigation District was operating legally when it dug a 25-foot-deep pit behind Villa Park Dam along Santiago Creek that wiped out valuable wetlands. But it does seem obvious that authorities were not kept thoroughly appraised of activities on the site in Weir Canyon. Although digging operations have now ceased, the investigations now underway by the Orange County district attorney’s office and the FBI should be pursued vigorously.

Serrano Irrigation, a small water agency that provides water to residents of Villa Park and part of Orange, maintains that it was interested only in clearing away silt from water pipes behind the dam. The district denied that its operations had turned into mining for profit, although it reported earning $543,406 from 1986 to 1991 on the sale of the materials that were removed.

The water agency was operating under a 1986 federal wetlands permit.

In 1991, however, Orange County officials launched a review of the district’s activities. One question is why there wasn’t better oversight.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers, which also became involved, say that work on the site appears to have grown substantially beyond the permit. Serrano Irrigation officials say that federal officials are confusing their project with some others that were undertaken in the past by a private mining agency. They do acknowledge, however, that the project encroached--they say accidentally--on four acres of Irvine Regional Park.

All of this is important because Weir Canyon contains Orange County’s largest single stand of willow woodland, a type of freshwater wetlands that is considered extremely important as a wildlife habitat, including as a breeding ground for the endangered least Bell’s vireo.

A Fish and Wildlife Service biologist reported sighting the songbird there in 1991 and again this year. Indeed, the loss of any freshwater wetlands in Orange County, which has already lost 75% to 90%, is of serious concern to environmentalists.

In addition to the separate investigations by the district attorney’s office and the FBI, Orange County has filed suit seeking restoration of the damaged parkland.

Wherever these efforts lead, Serrano Irrigation at minimum needs to get the message that it must operate only within its permits, and be careful not to damage precious wetlands.