River dredging causes concern

Jenny Marder

A group of residents fears that a plan to dredge a stretch of the

Santa Ana River will destroy sensitive plant life and take away an

endangered species habitat.

The Orange County Public Facilities Resources Department and the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to dredge the river to bring it

back to its full design capacity, removing sediment and vegetation

that has accumulated along a 4,000-foot stretch of the waterway that

straddles Adams Avenue.

“It will increase the capacity of the channel so that we can

contain the 100-year flood,” said Ken Smith, director of public works

for the county. “Sediment and vegetation is filling up the channel.

Other than just filling up the area, it also creates a higher

friction factor for water to flow through the channel. This means the

channel can carry less water.”

Fred-Otto Egeler, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

said that the state agency’s goal is “to protect the lives and

property of people living along the river.”

The project would also involve scraping vegetation, such as willow

trees and mule fat, from the bottom and sides of the riverbed.

Local environmentalists are asking that other options be

considered, since this vegetation is a nesting and feeding area for

the Least Bell’s Vireo, an endangered bird.

“I’m hoping for better ecological treatment of the river,” said

Jan Vandersloot, one of the founders of the activist Ocean Outfall

Group. “Normally, a river has vegetation in it, which serves a

function, an ecological function. A concrete box with water trickling

down the middle of it doesn’t serve any function. Vegetation can’t

grow in it.”

Instead of scraping vegetation from this strip of river bed,

Vandersloot proposes expanding storage capacity adjacent to the Santa

Ana River, raising the channel walls, or creating a pilot channel

that runs down the middle of the river, while allowing habitat to

remain along the sides.

Plans call for the vegetation to be relocated elsewhere along the

river as nesting habitat.

“We’re going to do it during non-nesting time, and we’re going to

mitigate,” Egeler said.

Vandersloot argues that the Santa Ana River should be treated as a

river rather than a concrete flood control channel. His hope is “to

change the paradigm of what is the Santa Ana River.”

“I don’t understand why they have to have such a huge concrete

capacity in the Santa Ana River as it goes through Orange County and

why they can’t do things like create a soft river bottom so that

water has a chance to seep into the river,” Vandersloot said.

Right now, Vandersloot is gathering information and trying to

build public support.

The contract for the dredging has already been awarded, and the

county and the Army Corps of Engineers have until December 2004 to

complete the project, Smith said. A specific timeline has not been

set.

A public information meeting will be held at 7 p.m. today at Costa

Mesa City Hall to discuss the dredging project.