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Canyon Talks Delayed in San Bernardino, Calif.

Posted on: Monday, 22 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 22--Questions about San Bernardino County flood control continue to haunt local, state and federal officials, while two county supervisors prepare to meet with Congressional staff members to discuss public-safety concerns below Deer Canyon in Rancho Cucamonga.

All five county supervisors said last week they joined California's senators in their call on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate the full range of threats to public safety below the Deer Canyon debris basin, and to recommend what remedial action be taken.

"Any time we are notified of unsafe circumstances, we are immediately accountable for doing something about it," said 5th District Supervisor Josie Gonzales.

Second District Supervisor Paul Biane and 1st District Supervisor Bill Postmus were expected to fly to Washington today to confer with the staffs of Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein on Capitol Hill, but the trip was delayed and is being rescheduled.

Critics of the Corps say asking the agency to critique its own work again is pointless. The Corps, which designed and built the basin, has not acted on a $250,000 state study completed in 2002.

Staff members of the Corps' commanding general, Carl A. Strock in Washington, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

"It's ridiculous to ask the Corps about this again," said Massoud Rezakhani, a hydrology specialist who examined flood-hazard mapping below Deer Canyon for a Federal Emergency Management Agency contractor in 2000.

"Let's get serious," Rezakhani said. "Why not ask the National Academy of Sciences to look at what the Corps has done?'

At issue is the size of the Deer Canyon basin and whether it can protect neighborhoods of homes, schools and businesses, including Ontario International Airport, from a 100-year flood event.

The Christmas 2003 storm that killed 16 people in areas unprotected by flood control was estimated a 5-year to 10-year event by county hydrologist Michael Fox. Individual storms last rain season did not exceed 25-year magnitude or intensity, meteorologists said earlier this year.

Corps officials in Los Angeles have said the basin is slightly undersized, while scientists representing the state, homeowners and the airport found the capacity posed a threat to lives and property downstream.

The county acknowledged in 2004 that the basin was undersized when it sought a hazard-mitigation grant of $330,000 to enlarge the structure.

Rezakhani is not alone in contending the Corps' review of its own work constitutes a conflict of interest. Shortly after the state completed its 2002 study of the basin, Robert Johnson of Los Angeles World Airports, owners of Ontario International, wrote to State Resources Secretary Mary Nichols.

"We are concerned that the agency responsible for the initial design (the Corps) is apparently the same agency continuing to lead the rebuttal of a growing body of contrary opinion," Johnson said. "This strikes us as an obvious conflict."

Airport officials and other scientists are frustrated that an independent study was never conducted.

In July 2000, Feinstein and Boxer wrote to U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker requesting a comprehensive investigation and review of the design, construction and maintenance of the Deer Canyon basin.

A spokesman for Walker at the Government Accountability Office in Washington said Friday the senators withdrew their request later that year. Senatorial staff members were unable to explain Friday why the request was withdrawn.

The county is appraising 1,137 acres below Deer Canyon for a possible settlement with Upland developers Colonies Partners LP. Biane has met with Colonies principal Jeffrey Burum and says climbing real estate values mean the land could be worth more than $100 million.

Douglas Hamilton, a consulting engineer with Exponent Failure Analysis of Irvine, worked for Havenview Homeowners Association for one year and continued studying Deer Canyon on his own. He has worked for the county in the past and accurately predicted debris flows in north San Bernardino after the 1997 Hemlock fire.

Hamilton concluded in 2000 that "at best, the debris basin will only provide a 20-year level of protection. It's about a third the size it needs to be."

"There's consensus between the state, the county and the other parties that a fix needs to be done," Hamilton said Friday. "I think the county and the city of Rancho Cucamonga are both knowledgeable enough to spearhead this.

"Most parties agreed with my study," Hamilton said. "They need to fix this."

Biane, a former Rancho Cucamonga councilman, has estimated a suitable basin fix will cost "in the neighborhood of $500,000." Hamilton said cost estimates from a 2003 Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority study group ranged from $2.5 million to $5 million to adequately enlarge the basin.

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Source: San Bernardino County Sun

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