Residents Allege Sinking Feeling Is Flood-Control Project’s Fault : Lawsuits: Construction firms say work hasn’t caused the damage, but homeowners claim it forced water underneath houses.

Gilbert and Margaret Caruso first realized in 1991 that their home and other houses on their quiet street had begun to sink.

That happened to be the year that work began on the Santa Ana River flood-control project, and it began with the building of a temporary dam about a third of a mile downstream from their home.

The result, the Carusos and three other couples allege in lawsuits filed last week, was that the dam forced water to seep into the soil around their homes, causing foundations to slip, walkways to buckle and walls to crack.

Caruso said he has spent thousands of dollars on repairs to his four-bedroom home on New Hampshire Drive since the construction work began. Last week, Caruso said, he put on a third roof because shifting had caused it to crack again.

“When they were working on the Santa Ana River project, they dammed up the part of the flood-control channel so they could work,” said Caruso, whose home stands 30 feet from the channel designed to control water flow from the river. “The water would fill up and seep back into our property. Now there’s cracking all around the wall, ceiling, driveway, patio, wherever there is cement. I pay for this.”

All four lawsuits were filed Thursday against Steve P. Rados Inc. in Santa Ana and Lumsdaine Construction Inc. of Irvine. Claims also were filed last week by the same families with Orange County, the county Flood Control District and the county Environmental Management Agency.

Randall Friend, one of two lawyers representing the homeowners, said the companies “were hired to deepen and widen the Santa Ana River channel. There is cosmetic to major structural damage where some homes have dipped six feet back.”

This is not the first suit brought by residents here against the construction companies and the county. In August, owners of 29 homes along New Hampshire Drive, Iowa Street and along the bluffs on Europa and Sandpiper drives came to a settlement. The outcome of those suits remain confidential, said Timothy Carrick, an attorney representing Lumsdaine Construction.

“Lumsdaine believes they didn’t do anything wrong here,” Carrick said. “The people are getting in line and filing lawsuits because one person got some money. (Lumsdaine officials) don’t know where it’s going to stop.”

Bob Doder, secretary treasurer of Rados, said he was not aware of the new suit and was “not at liberty to discuss it.”

In the first lawsuit, geologists said the soil, not the damming of the channel, caused the homes to shift, Carrick said.

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“It was a soil condition that was pre-existing the channel construction,” he said. “Geology experts in the first lawsuit were telling us that the houses themselves exhibited distress features that are exhibited by expansive soil, which expands when it’s wet.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs disagree.

“There was a difference of opinion between the plaintiffs’ experts and the defense. Our experts attribute the damage to the storage of water in the Greenville-Banning Channel during the flood control project,” said attorney Warren Wimer, who works with Friend on the case.

Cracks run the length of the Carusos’ garage floor. Yellow water stains mar the ceiling over the queen-sized bed in the master bedroom and along a wall in another bedroom. Next door, concrete walkways and driveways have pulled away from fences and buckled in some spots.

Caruso said the damage has devastated resale values.

“We put a considerable amount of money back in to this home. We love where we live, the neighborhood is great,” said Caruso, who has lived here 24 years. “The problem is there’s almost a hold on these homes. Who is going to buy a home when all this is going on? Our equity, where has it gone? It used to be $270,000 to $280,000. Now, there’s a definite question if people can sell it.”

The first phase of the Santa Ana flood control project was finished in August, 1993. After the temporary dam was built just south of Adams Avenue, the channel was widened from there to Pacific Coast Highway, through the cities of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

“We’re just hoping we get some some kind of restitution because this isn’t a fault of ours,” Caruso said.