Santa Ana River Drainage Work Becomes Urgent After Wildfires
Re “Let River Flow, or Let It Grow?” Nov. 3:
It would seem that Jan Vandersloot and the writer, David Reyes, have not been paying much attention to current events. Most if not all of the burned acreage of the Grand Prix/Old fires is watershed of the Santa Ana River.
When the rains begin to fall this winter, we are going to have a severe flooding problem all along this drainage.
The people of Orange County worked for decades to gain approval for the Santa Ana River improvements. What a shame if the floodplain of this river overflows again this year because of the misplaced benevolence of Vandersloot and “other environmental activists.” Just imagine the damage if we were to have a 100-year storm, which the improvements were planned to contain, in addition to the catastrophic fire damages.
Certainly, as educated environmentalists, they know that riparian habitats by their very nature are transitional environments and will be replaced by future erosion and redeposition.
The U.S. Corps of Engineers knows this drainage very well and should be encouraged to begin their work now, while there is still time.
John Downing
Anaheim
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