City Clears Out Wash

At the request of residents who still remember severe flooding in the Little Tujunga Wash area in the early 1990s, city crews earlier this month began a project to remove massive amounts of sand and gravel that could slow water during anticipated El Nino storms.

“I call it the miracle in the wash,” said Frank Bonoff, of the city’s Bureau of Engineering. “Everybody got behind this project.”

After the flooding in 1992 and 1993, in which homes around the wash were flooded and the Foothill Boulevard bridge was washed out, studies were done about how to prevent future damage. Residents there began to lobby Councilman Joel Wachs for the project after recent warnings about the expected heavy storms this winter. The city’s Department of Public Works--which oversees the Bureau of Engineering--had to obtain permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Fish and Game and the state’s Water Quality Board.

The city had to agree to various conditions, including that an archeologist be present during all work in case crews uncovered something significant, Bonoff said.

Crews began work Oct. 16.

The work on the 120-foot-wide channel will extend from the Foothill Boulevard bridge north about 2,800 feet.

A 20-person crew using 20 trucks will remove about 150,000 cubic yards of the sand, gravel and rock. Work should be completed by Nov. 8.

“As long as it doesn’t rain, it doesn’t matter if it takes a couple more days,” Bonoff said. “We are trying to beat El Nino.”

Engineers hope the improved wash can handle 1.77 inches of rainfall per hour--an intensity of rain that occurs in that area about once every 50 years, Bonoff said.

“I’ve been with the city for almost 32 years and I’m just proud,” Bonoff said of the project. “It’s not the Great Pyramids, but it certainly is impressive.”

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