Santa Paula Creek: Federal stimulus fund fixing on its way

May 01, 2009
Santa Paula News

The longstanding and troubled effort to fix Santa Paula Creek to prevent destructive flooding is finally fully funded, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the clean-up and restoration project received $7.5 million in federal stimulus funds.

By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThe longstanding and troubled effort to fix Santa Paula Creek to prevent destructive flooding is finally fully funded, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the clean-up and restoration project received $7.5 million in federal stimulus funds. When added to the present pot of money earmarked for the project, that means the project “went from zero to $11.5 million almost overnight,” said City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz.The creek has been the focus of false starts, lawsuits and floods for decades, and on a recent trip to Washington, D.C. Bobkiewicz and Mayor Ralph Fernandez met with various officials to address the matter.The announcement of the $7.5 million allocation follows closely the $4 million that earlier this year Congressman Elton Gallegly lobbied to get into the federal budget. The funding centered on cleaning out more than a mile of debris in the congested creek.
“First and foremost,” said Bobkiewicz, “Rep. Gallegly is the unsung hero here... the only way we had access to the money was because money” had already been earmarked for a creek project. And that, Bobkiewicz noted, “never would have happened without the work of Rep. Gallegly and his staff in Washington.”The funding will be used to channel the creek, shore up a levee and reconstruct a fish ladder. When completed, the work will take Santa Paula out of the flood plain and protect the city from a 100-year-catastrophic flood, unfortunately an event that seems to be experienced in Santa Paula every few years. Floods of the past have destroyed banks of property along the creek, including the campus of Mupu School.In the 2005 storm, creek runoff smashed against a sand and rock bar where the creek enters the Santa Clara River - a leftover of earlier Corps work. The water bounced against the opposite back and back across the river, heavily damaging the lone runway at Santa Paula Airport. Although it was feared the runway would be completely destroyed, a strong round the clock salvage effort saved the runway from total destruction. Rep. Gallegly and other elected officials led the funding effort to restore the runway.“The project only three months ago had no funds to move forward,” noted Bobkiewicz, “and now has received money in the FY 2009 Federal budget and now stimulus funds to complete all work needed on the creek.... We’ll work with our partners at the county,” the Ventura County Watershed Protection District, and the Corps of Engineers “to move the project forward, and get it started,” said Bobkiewicz, “as fast as we can.”



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