U.S. Agency Decision Delays Flood-Control Work on San Antonio Creek

A federal agency has derailed the county’s attempt to perform emergency flood-control work on San Antonio Creek, saying more study is needed before the proposed $1.15-million project could go forward.

Wednesday’s decision by the Army Corps of Engineers will indefinitely delay the work, which the county says is necessary to safeguard Casitas Springs residents and their property near the Ventura River tributary.

But representatives of the corps believe alternative work that would eliminate the flooding threat still could be completed this winter.

“We’re well aware that these people are very concerned about their property, and the county is very concerned about their property, and we are too,” said Bruce Henderson, acting chief of the corps’ Ventura office. “We feel they can protect their property with a project of a lesser scale.”

The county had proposed realigning, widening and deepening a two-mile stretch of the creek to protect the people who live in about 30 homes on a nearby flood plain. Henderson suggested such options as clearing overgrown vegetation as one alternative to the county’s more intrusive plan.

As many as 13 of the homes are believed to be in danger of flooding in a 25-year storm, which statistically has a 4% chance of occurring in any one year. Last winter saw two such storms.

The corps delayed the project because six state and federal agencies, citing concerns about the river’s habitat, unanimously opposed the work without an in-depth environmental review. The county had hoped to do the project without such a lengthy study.

The county could either conduct the study, delaying the project by months, or propose a smaller-scale project, Henderson said.

County officials aren’t sure what they will do.

“As it stands right now, we are stopped and we need to determine how to proceed,” said Alex Sheydayi, Ventura County deputy director of public works.

Complicating matters is the fact that the county could lose a $600,000 grant it received from another federal agency for the work, he said. The county has already exceeded the time limit imposed to use that money, although it has unofficially received an extension through mid-February, Sheydayi said. Still, the project probably won’t be done by that deadline.

Whether the money would still be available if the project changed is also unknown.

And officials don’t know whether a smaller-scale project would work, given the dynamics of the creek, or just how they would determine what work should be done--and what property potentially saved--with the limited money, Sheydayi said.

Residents are worried about the delay.

“My home, my family, the value of my property is riding on this,” said Starr Hungate, a 10-year resident of Creek Road, whose home was valued at $240,000 before last year’s storms caused an estimated $30,000 worth of damage to it.

Environmentalists, though, have a different view. John Buse, an attorney for the nonprofit Environmental Defense Center, a Santa Barbara-based group that filed suit Dec. 13 on behalf of two clients to stop the project, applauded the agency’s decision.

“We believe that the requisite level of flood-control protection could be provided in a less damaging and alternative manner that would be less harmful to the environment,” he said.

The center’s clients, California Trout and Friends of the Ventura River, are concerned about the work’s effect on the creek, home to one of Southern California’s last runs of steelhead trout.