County plans to finish levee repairs before storm

County officials will do whatever it takes to keep neighborhoods dry north of a crumbling levee if it breaks this winter before emergency repairs are finished, they told residents this week.

About 50 residents gathered Monday night at an informational meeting regarding the north side of the East Garden Grove-Wintersburg Channel, which county officials say could break during the next big storm if not shored up. Officials explained plans to push huge metal sheets 30 feet into the dirt levees now that the County Board of Supervisors has declared it an emergency.

But the construction is only half the job eventually required, Flood Control Division Manager Nadeem Majaj said. The district also wants a wall behind the levee to hold up the earth between and put a maintenance road on top, but it wants to act fast.

Shea Properties, which plans to put housing next to the levee, has promised to finish the job when it starts building its development. But the proposed housing has hit delays in the Coastal Commission, as commission staff called for more restrictions than the developer says it can handle. If that process takes too long, the county will do the work itself, part of its plans to rebuild the whole channel over the next several years, Majaj said.

“We can’t do the whole thing now because of money considerations,” he said. “But the least we can do is make sure the levee doesn’t break on the north side.”

“It’s a starting point,” Shea spokesman Laer Pearce said in an interview the next day. But it won’t grant residents relief from having to buy flood insurance, he said. His company says its improvements would do so. “There are several critical links missing. You don’t get the insurance benefits until you get the whole puzzle together.”

But resident Don Clemens, who lives north of the levee, said he didn’t like having to wait so long on an outside actor.

“We’re going to sit there with just a single sheet waiting for the Coastal Commission and Shea to have their argument?” he asked.

Before the roughly 75-day project, which still needs Coastal Commission approval, is finished, there will still be extra protection in case of flood.

“During heavy rainfall we’re going to have personnel up there walking up and down the levee to keep an eye on it,” said Phil Jones, flood control design manager. If the levee breaks, workers have plans to put up temporary concrete railing and sandbags.

The channel, which runs from the ocean northeast through wetlands, a proposed development and neighborhoods past Warner Avenue and Springdale Street, is the county’s top priority for flood control money, Majaj said. The vulnerable section between the Old Oil Road Bridge and Graham Street is well recognized as its weakest link, he added.

“We’re going to do the project,” he said. “We need to do the project. I’m tired of losing sleep about this.”