By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large

Speedier permit approval getting clogged channels cleaned out

When Governor Brown declined to waive environmental regulations so that critical flood problems like Alvarado Creek could be easily cleaned out, it looked as though we would be suffering through another very wet and very destructive El Niño winter.

Two factors have eased that concern somewhat. One is that El Niño has not, so far, been as bad or long-lasting as predicted. The operative phrase here is “so far,” because the experts say El Niño is not over with yet.

The other, and perhaps more important factor, is that in the letter from state Office of Emergency Services director Mark Ghilarducci was the instruction to state agencies to drastically speed up the required permitting of cleanup projects. In other words, local agencies got the breaks they needed to start doing things, even though the environmental rules were not exactly waived.

That also brought a response from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has the task of deciding which projects should be classified as emergencies. Quicker decisions from the Corps have arrived at the relevant agencies, and they in turn are cranking out permits as quickly as possible.

Eric Becker at the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board says all this is having the desired effect.

“We’re getting things done a lot faster than in the past, simply because the whole process is working quicker,” Becker said. “We get requests, and we can deal with them as soon as we get them. “

One of the problems has always been that there are so many agencies involved in such requests that the application could get hung up in any of the bureaucracies along the way. That’s not happening much anymore, because the need to fix problems before they become disasters is much more real now.

The city of San Diego has pretty much jumped to the front of the contest to see who can get things done.

It has a long list of Capital Improvement Projects on the books, and money set aside to go after them. Almost $45 million has been added to the Transportation and Storm Water budget for 2016 to go after problem areas.

There is a long list of projects with priorities established, but those are priorities that can be changed quickly if a problem suddenly comes up. The stormwater pipe that broke on Cabaret Drive in San Carlos, flooding several homes and yards, is an example. It was quickly repaired, and will now move up the list for a permanent fix.

That creeks and channels, including the San Diego River, need some serious cleaning out comes as no surprise to the San Diego River Park Foundation, which is dedicated to the care and preservation of the river. The Foundation applauds the cleanup efforts- up to a point.

“We can see where a lot of the channels, especially the river, have a lot of non-native vegetation growing there that needs to go away, but a lot of care needs to be taken,” says Foundation Executive Director Rob Hutsel.

“It goes back so many years, way back to when farms dominated the Mission Valley area. Over the years, the river has been changed so much by development that it’s not really a real river anymore. It’s not really effective as a flood control channel, which is what a river is supposed to do. At the same time, it’s become a home for so much wildlife that never used to use it as habitat. There are birds and turtles in the river valley that are endangered, and they have to be protected by law. We can’t just go in and start digging stuff out and throwing it away.”

The same applies to the Tijuana River valley, the Sweetwater River valley, and all such channels in our area. Cleanup and cleanout needs doing, but carefully.

There is a balance that needs to be struck between the needs of people and the needs of plant and animal species that need protection, and that’s a balance that is sometimes hard to maintain.

But, if local agencies can strike that balance and keep it, it seems a lot of environmental good can be done while still protecting the rights of people and businesses as well.

It appears the city of San Diego is recognizing the real and potential problems, and appropriating money and people and equipment to get these things done.

We may yet get caught up in one or two more severe El Niño events before this winter is over.

I clearly recall, in previous El Niños, standing in moving water up to my knees doing television live reports during those storms, and my memory is that a lot of those reports were done in late March and April.

If that happens, it may give us a better read on what’s been done so far for flood control, and more importantly, what still must be done.

As baseball legend Yogi Berra was fond of saying, “It ain’t over until it’s over.”

—Doug Curlee is Editor at Large. Write to him at [email protected].