Federal funds arrive for Mission Creek

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A stretch of Mission Creek in Santa Barbara that regularly floods is expected to see vast improvements in coming years with the help of $215,000 in recently approved federal funds.
Standing next to one of the most severe problem areas of the creek on Chapala Street near the Amtrak Station, Rep. Lois Capps, who helped get the funds approved, and other local officials lauded the help from the federal level and expressed hope that the long awaited project will be completed in a timely manner.


“This has been a problem for the city for years and years and years,” said Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum. “We know that the time has come for us to finish this project.”
Calling the creek one of the “greatest unresolved flood dangers in the county,” Capps noted the importance to improve aesthetic and environmental issues with the waterway as well.
“This has been an eyesore for a very long time,” Capps said. “This is part of the community that everyone has an interest in improving and restoring.”
Plans to remedy problems with the creek have been kicked around at various levels of government for more than 60 years, Capps said.
The federal money will be matched with $215,000 from the county and city and will be used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on planning and modeling for future widening of the creek.
The results of this planning likely won’t be realized until more federal or state funding become available in the future.
But the ball will begin rolling to relieve flooding near the train station soon.
Tom Fayram, deputy public works director for Santa Barbara County, said construction will begin in April to install a flood culvert – a large, square, concrete pipe in this case – that will be placed near the Amtrak Station where it will run roughly from the 101 Freeway, beneath the railroad tracks, to where the creek crosses Chapala to the south. He said the culvert will divert water about a quarter-mile around a section of the creek that commonly floods.
Because April’s project will require the closure of the railroad corridor, Fayram said it will coincide with a separate project by Union Pacific that will also close the railway.
When that portion of the project is complete and more funding becomes available, Fayram said the majority of the 1.2-mile stretch of creek between the ocean and Canon Perdido Street will be widened.
He said this will require a handful of residents to be displaced and the purchase by the county or city of at least one commercial lot.
A quarter-mile section of the creek near the Amtrak Station that is lined with slabs of sandstone won’t be widened due its “historical” significance, according to Cameron Benson, city creeks manager.
Benson, who has long championed efforts to restore upper stretches of Mission Creek, which has some concrete channeling that makes it difficult or sometimes impossible for the endangered Steelhead Trout to travel upstream to spawn, said the future of lower Mission Creek appears to be looking up.
“This project, from an environmental standpoint, has gotten better and better over the years,” Benson said, adding that early plans for the lower part of Mission Creek in the 1960s called for additional concrete channeling.
He said no concrete channeling will be used in future projects and sections of the creek will be restored and rehabilitated with the planting of native trees and other vegetation.
Capps noted that while $215,000 is drop in the bucket when talking about the federal government’s budget, it is significant when combined with the $280,000 of additional federal money she helped secure for improvements to the Santa Maria Levee and the intense competition from thousands of counties throughout the country for money.
“It’s very competitive,” Capps said. “We work at this really hard when we’re back in Washington.”
First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal said he is proud to be part of a team effort that includes nearly all levels of government support, including city, county, state and federal.
To illustrate the length of time Mission Creek has been a hot-button issue in the city, Blum said the first time she attended a public meeting at City Hall was 39 years ago and the topic was Mission Creek.
“This feels like we can see the end,” she said. “It’s one more step but to me it’s a big step.”