SANTA PAULA : Plan to Prevent Floods Advances

A $13.5-million federal project to reduce the possibility of flooding along Santa Paula Creek appears to be inching toward approval, Santa Paula city officials said Tuesday.

The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed two environmental studies of the proposed project, which calls for deepening the creek’s stream bed and construction of rock walls along its banks, said Norm Wilkinson, the city’s public works director.

Public comments on the studies may be made until May 17, and then the project will be further reviewed by the Army Corps. If there are no snags, blueprints for the 1.6-mile project will probably be drawn up in the next year and initial work will begin in about two or three years, said Grigor Grigorian, chief of the Army Corp’s Southcoast region.

The Santa Paula City Council on Monday gave its unanimous support for the project in a letter that will be sent to the Army Corps, Wilkinson said. City officials have been pushing the project for at least two decades because 2,000 homeowners in the city will be able to drop expensive flood insurance once it is completed, he said.

Annual premiums for flood coverage, required by federal mandates for any home in a flood plain, cost an average of $500 per household, Wilkinson said.

“This has been a financial burden on homeowners in Santa Paula for years,” he said. “We’re very happy to have the project moving along.”

Houses threatened during flooding by Santa Paula Creek include all of those in the downtown areas and eastern portions of the city, Wilkinson said. County and city flood-control workers have averted floods in recent years by keeping the creek clear of channel-clogging brush and boulders, said Patrick Richards, a planner in the county’s Flood Control Department.

Completion of the project will eliminate much of that maintenance, he said. The proposal allows for a natural stream bed and banks shored up by walls constructed from grouted river rock.