Flooding Shows Clash of People, Wildlife : Environment: Control channels are choked with plants because of rules to protect habitat. Result was millions of dollars in property damage.

In Victorville, where the downtown is built on a flood plain from the Mojave River, 45 residents were evacuated at 5 a.m. one recent morning, five houses were condemned and at least five more were seriously damaged because of flooding from the winter storms.

In Temecula, where the business district is built at the edge of the Murrieta Creek flood channel, businesses were submerged under six feet of water during the this year’s rains after the vegetation-filled creek overflowed its banks.

In Redlands, two of three bridges over the Santa Ana River wash were destroyed by raging waters and floating debris, leaving only one traffic-choked thoroughfare over the water between Redlands and Highland.

This was more than a normal catalogue of catastrophe produced by the dramatic end to a disastrous drought. It also is striking evidence of the continuing clash between environmental protection and human safety in Southern California.

In all three instances, flood control channels--jammed with plants because regulations to protect wildlife habitat prevented clearing--were unable to handle the rains. The result was dramatic flooding and millions of dollars in property damage.

“We understand you have to balance the environmental concerns with the human concerns,” said Debbie Ream, spokeswoman for the hard-hit city of Victorville. “But there comes a time when you have to look at the public safety issues. A city’s primary mission is public safety. It’s very frustrating when we see things like this.”

Even beyond environmental protection, the flooding is also a legacy of growing development, particularly in Inland Empire towns such as Victorville and Temecula, and the drought that allowed many Southern Californians to forget that their homes are built on flood plains where there can be danger.

Two months of heavy rain caused government officials to call an end to the drought. Long-term weather forecasts predict rain through April and the danger of flooding continues.

At the heart of what has happened this winter are state and federal regulations protecting vegetation in soft-bottomed flood control channels, those soil-lined washes that are supposed to carry excess water away from inhabited areas during heavy storms.

When a flood control channel is choked with vegetation, it loses capacity and cannot safely handle the water from a heavy storm. In addition, the extra plant life traps sediment, which cuts its flood control ability.

The California Fish and Game Code and the federal Clean Water Act require that any project must receive official clearance before clearing out vegetation from the channels. The reason is that such plant life is often important habitat for wildlife of all kinds--common and endangered species.

In the Victorville area, the Mojave River is the only real riparian habitat in the High Desert with its willows, cottonwood trees and brush, said Andy Pauli, associate wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. The river is a migration corridor for birds and home to the endangered least bell’s vireos, a small bird, the Mojave ground squirrel and the desert tortoise.

“In the Victorville area, the flood control people wanted to come in and take out every tree along the whole Mojave River near the I-15 bridge for about two miles,” Pauli said. “Health and human safety is important to us, but we’re in charge of making sure there’s some habitat available for animals too.”

That job is becoming increasingly difficult. Most development in the area appeared after the drought began. Victorville’s population grew from about 17,000 in 1980 to nearly 41,000 in 1990.

In the past several years, the San Bernardino County Flood Control District has applied for permits to clear the Mojave River of brush and other vegetation in the Victorville area. City spokeswoman Ream said the permit was delayed by the Department of Fish and Game. The district also applied for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which grants federal permission for such projects.

Pauli, from the state, and Antal Szijj, an ecologist with the Corps of Engineers, said the agencies had been negotiating with the flood control district, trying to work out a clearance project that would protect wildlife habitat. The difficult process was under way when the rains hit Jan. 8, flooding the city, and Feb. 20, flooding the nearby Spring Valley Lake area.

In downtown Victorville, five homes are still not fit for occupation after the severe flooding and ensuing evacuations. In Spring Valley Lake, Ream said, “the river all of a sudden tore through the bank where these houses were. There were five or six homes there. It literally left one home hanging out over the water.”

“They were life-threatening situations in each case,” said Fred Contaoi, an assistant director in the San Bernardino County Flood Control District.

Five years ago, when Gayle Wood moved her business, Floor Covering Specialists, into a strip of offices and light industry on Diaz Road in Temecula, she could see a bank of buildings across Murrieta Creek. Over the past five years, she said, “the trees have gotten taller and taller and those buildings have disappeared.”

So when the storm swept through Temecula on Jan. 16, runoff water searching for someplace to go overflowed the plant-filled creek, which some wildlife experts contend is home to the least Bell’s vireo. A five-foot wall of water broke through the back door of her business. The offices in front of the 14,000-square-foot store retained four or five inches of water and much of the warehouse space was under several inches of mud.

Paperwork and $200,000 in custom flooring were lost. Wood is furious. “If it’s a designated flood canal, how can it be declared a habitat?” she asked.

Nearby, Quicksilver Enterprises Inc., which manufactures ultra-light aircraft, sustained more than $400,000 in damage, when the flood control channel failed during the storm. Computers, furniture, manufacturing equipment and inventory were destroyed. Thousands of tiny machine parts were scattered in the mud that found its way into the building, said John Lasko, Quicksilver’s vice president of sales and marketing.

At L & M Fertilizer, four feet of water and several inches of mud destroyed about $100,000 worth of air filters for tractors, bags of fertilizers, the phone system and historical records.

Owner Leo McGuire, who blames the damage on the vegetation in Murrieta Creek, has organized more than 20 Temecula businesses to fight to keep the creek clear. But “we’ve only met once so far,” McGuire said. “Right now we’re all just struggling to survive, working nights to get our stores back open.”

McGuire has reopened his business and as he and his group are able to gear up for action, they face a daunting task. Development throughout Southern California has made wildlife habitats so scarce and precious that keeping them alive no matter the cost has high priority.

“We want to preserve habitat, make more of it,” ecologist Szijj said. “There’s a lot of pressure out here for development. The more and more of these habitats disappear, the more there will be a push to stop this (vegetation-clearing) process.”