Morgan Hill
– A controversial flood control project has made the Pajaro
River the most endangered waterway in the country, according to a
report scheduled to be released today by a nonprofit watchdog
group.
Morgan Hill – A controversial flood control project has made the Pajaro River the most endangered waterway in the country, according to a report scheduled to be released today by a nonprofit watchdog group.
“The Corps can either come in and look at this river holistically, or continue the same old practices and continue to put people at risk,” Melissa Samet, of American Rivers, said of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “We saw it in New Orleans. When you don’t work with nature, you can create an unnatural disaster out of a natural flood event.”
The Pajaro flows from the Diablo Mountain range in the East Bay, through San Benito County just south of Gilroy and into Monterey Bay. It’s watershed, the area that feeds the river, includes most of Santa Clara County and the Llagas and Uvas creeks.
The designation as most endangered river doesn’t mean that the Pajaro is actually in bad condition. It was selected because environmental advocates are hoping to influence flood protection decisions that will be made sometime this year by the Army Corps. Nicole Ortega, a senior project manager with the Corps, said the agency wants to look at a watershed-wide flood project, but lacks funding for such a study. The Corps is about to complete a study of possible projects on the lower half of the river.
Environmentalists are worried that the Corps is focusing too much on a levee project along the last 12 miles of the river and ignoring problems upstream – including development in the Soap Lake flood plain and mining operations in San Benito County – that create severe flooding threats. They say the projects being considered by the Corps will leave citizens and farmers in Watsonville and Pajaro vulnerable to a deluge similar to the 1995 flood.
“The system will fail because they haven’t taken into account upstream conditions,” said Lois Robin, a member of Sierra Club committee devoted to the Pajaro. “The problem of sand and gravel mining has been virtually ignored. … Development on flood plains changes the natural ways of the river and more and more water is coming into downstream areas.”
Development in natural flood plains limits the amount of water that percolates naturally into the groundwater and increases the flow of a river. Robin said that San Benito County mining operations have a similar effect. A spokesman for Granite Rock Construction said Tuesday that his company adds no sediment to the Pajaro or any of its feeder creeks and streams, but the mining companies are coming under increased scrutiny.
Last December, the Central Coast Regional Water Board decided to make discharge permits for San Benito County mining companies contingent on a review of the cumulative impacts of their operations. Previously, the companies were evaluated separately. And the Pajaro River Watershed Flood Prevention Authority, which comprises the governments and water agencies of the Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, is also looking at ways to address mine-related sediment accumulation.
“We don’t know yet how severe it is,” said Carol Presley, Pajaro program manager for the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “The authority has discussed the importance of assessing the cumulative impacts of mining operations on flooding.”
The authority is also looking at way to preserve Soap Lake, which has often been targeted for development. Ideally, Robin said, she wants to see the Corps excavate along the entire length of the river, buy up farm land to restore natural flood plains and improve the levee system.
“The river could rejoin its flood plain and then require very little maintenance,” Robin said. “They could surprise us and do something more environmental, or taxpayers could spend gobs of money on another failed solution.”
