O.C.’s Wetlands Are Still at Risk

On the surface, the 30-year battle to save the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach from development appears to be near an end.

Herons and stilts, brown pelicans and snails are abundant. Construction crews are working -- not on homes, but on a contoured tidal basin and inlet that will let the ocean flow into the wetland. And a developer’s long-ago plan for thousands of homes and private marinas in the marshland has withered to just 349 houses on a mesa far from the water.

To environmentalists, Bolsa Chica represents a shining victory.

But a point of vulnerability remains: a 40-year-old flood control channel along the project’s western edge. Its earthen levees withstood this year’s heavy rains, but federal and county flood control officials say the East Garden Grove Wintersburg channel’s eroded banks could fail in a severe storm and cause millions of dollars in damage to the restored wetlands.

Activists say it’s something that needs fixing.

“The resource needs to be protected ... the time to do it is now,” said Shirley S. Dettloff, a former Huntington Beach mayor and founding member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica. “What comes down a flood channel in a big storm is not what you would want to see in the wetlands.”

For the county, the state of the flood control channel is a story of a missed opportunity. Federal officials in charge of the wetlands restoration project at one time offered to split the cost of repairing the channel.

“We were interested in avoiding this scenario where the flood channel in a big storm fails into our project, causing hugely expensive damage,” said Jack Fancher, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is overseeing the restoration.

The agencies sketched out a project that would improve the channel and increase its capacity. But state grants that would have helped the county pay its share of the project didn’t materialize. And the county failed to finish an environmental report in time to fit in with U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s project schedule.

So, the $65-million wetlands restoration is underway -- with no channel improvements planned -- while county and federal officials hope their luck holds over the next few winters.

“It’s an earthen levee, and every rain washes some more dirt off the slope. In some places it’s eye-opening,” Fancher said. “What it looks like to the non-engineer is that you have an obvious bank erosion and that the likely failure in a big storm is a hole blown in the levee.”

A similar situation developed during this year’s winter rains when San Juan Creek ate at its banks, forcing scores of families to be evacuated.

County flood control officials say they are aware of the potential problem the Wintersburg channel poses for Bolsa Chica but say they don’t have the money to improve it.

Other sections of the channel that run behind homes pose a far greater risk, said Herb Nakasone, the county’s director of public works.

The East Garden Grove Wintersburg channel was one of several earthen channels built in the 1950s to withstand a 10-year storm. It carries runoff from Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana. Concrete lining has been added to upstream portions to protect homes, but the bottom end of the creek has received little attention.

Nakasone said people should not become complacent because the levee held up this year. He said it didn’t fail because the county was largely spared the inch-per-hour high-intensity storms that cause flooding.

“The storms we had were rainfall over a long period of time, affecting the larger rivers like the Santa Ana and San Juan Creek,” Nakasone said. “We didn’t have too many of those flashy storms. That’s why the Wintersburg channel did well.”

With just $15 million in the county’s $80-million flood control budget for capital improvement projects such as upgrading flood channels, Nakasone said it was unlikely the county would get to work on the channel near Bolsa Chica within the decade.

The county’s best option for repairing the channel soon is the Army Corps of Engineers, which usually picks up more than half the bill for flood control projects, Nakasone said. He estimated that improvements to the entire channel -- including the section that abuts Bolsa Chica--would cost more than $100 million.

The county is 18 months away from completing a feasibility study that could result in the federal government funding a major improvement to the Wintersburg channel. But there is no shortage of such projects across the country in line for federal funding.