Residents along the Little Llagas Creek floodplain voiced their frustration with inadequate efforts to resolve the channel's continuing overflow problem, which recently resulted in a downtown flood that caused more than $140,000 worth of damage to public property.
Representatives from the Santa Clara Valley Water District, city of Morgan Hill and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers attempted to explain why certain efforts such as the distribution of sandbags fell short in containing the Oct. 13 deluge.
But no one in the audience at a community meeting Tuesday could escape the harsh reality that the one solution that will permanently eliminate most of Morgan Hill's flood concerns - the Upper Llagas Creek flood protection project - will not be finished for several years at the earliest, mainly due to a lack of funds.
"There is going to be flooding (in Morgan Hill) until we get this project in place," said water district CEO Beau Goldie, a Morgan Hill resident.
Initially planned in the 1950s, the $130-million project has been mired in red tape, failed funding requests, and lengthy permitting processes for decades.
Water district Director Rosemary Kamei said one purpose of Tuesday's meeting, jointly held by the water district and city of Morgan Hill, was to solicit public involvement in procuring $80 million from the federal government, the lead partner in the project.
"We need your help because we're competing with hundreds of other projects. We've invested millions of dollars and it isn't enough to solve the problem," Kamei said.
She said the water district has been circulating a petition to the U.S. Congress to let the body know that people have a strong desire for the project to be finished.
Earlier this year, the water district and the city agreed to front $10 million for the flood project's design and environmental study. The district's share of that cost is $7 million while the city will chip in $3 million, with both agencies counting on reimbursement from the federal government.
The total local share of the project is about $40 million, a cost the water district, city and state will eventually bear.
The design and EIR will take about 30 months to complete. The earliest expected completion date for the Llagas Creek Flood Protection project, if all the necessary funding can be acquired, is 2015, according to water district staff members.
The construction phase of the project, which would be led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would open up a 12.5-mile stretch of West Little Llagas Creek from Buena Vista Avenue in San Martin to Wright Avenue. It will be designed to protect about 1,100 homes, 500 businesses and 1,300 acres of agricultural land from flooding in South County.
"The Corps would love to do this project, but we don't have the funds right now," said J.D. Hardesty, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Water district Uvas Watershed Manager Liang Lee said the project would widen and deepen the channel to accommodate enough water to prevent the type of flood likely to occur once every 100 years.
The process is more complicated than it sounds, requiring permits from a list of state and federal agencies who enforce environmental regulations, staff members said.
Lee presented a slide show of photographs of downtown Morgan Hill during the Oct. 13 flood, when nearly seven inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period and spilled over the banks of Little Llagas Creek into the downtown area. The photos showed Trail Dust Barbeque, the Granada Theatre and other downtown structures about three feet deep in flood water.
Lee described the Oct. 13 flood as "more than a 100-year event."
Since 1955, Morgan Hill has suffered flood damage 13 times. The Oct. 13 storm caused the most damage at least in the last 15 years, according to Morgan Hill Public Works Director Jim Ashcraft. Prior to that, the most recent incident was Jan. 4, 2008.
He said the city spent more than $200,000 responding to flood-related incidents on Oct. 13 and cleaning up the damage, including a sewage spill at Ludewig Ranch south of town.
About 80 percent of the flooding that happened that day could have been prevented if the Upper Llagas Creek project had been in place.
Certain aspects of the water district's flood preparation plan were inadequate that day, staff members admitted. For example the annual sandbag program, which costs the water district about $1 million per year, usually starts Nov. 1. Plus, detailed information and constant monitoring of creek levels early in the day were unavailable, and a crane owned by the district for debris and vegetation removal was damaged.
"All our protocols were geared to Nov. 1," said Martin Gamez, emergency services director for the water district. "So we need to get a handle on our planning."
A handful of residents who live in and around the floodplain that was inundated attended Tuesday's meeting. Most of them were clearly frustrated with the water district's flood response efforts. One resident, Mike White of Hale Avenue, complained that people can only take 20 sandbags per vehicle - not nearly enough to protect most homes and businesses.
Another resident, Judy Berkman of Diana Court, cried as she described how she has become used to making frantic phone calls downstream each time she notices the creek next to her house filling up with "whitewater" during a storm. Berkman does not live in the floodplain, but urged the water district and city to institute an effective creek level monitoring system and a flood warning system.
"When I notice the creek is clogged up, I know downtown has about two hours (before it floods)," Berkman said.
Water district staff said in response to the extent of damage caused by the Oct. 13 storm, the agency is working on improving the sandbag program, determining better use of equipment such as pumps, and evaluating its routine and pre-storm creek cleanup schedules. The district is also in the process of developing a flood warning system, and installing monitoring devices along Upper Llagas Creek.
But these are only interim solutions to help deal with flooding that will occur before the Upper Llagas Creek project is complete.
"The Oct. 13 storm is still fresh in our minds," Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said. "(Flooding) is happening on a yearly basis, reminding us what a clear need there is to address the flooding problem in Morgan Hill."
More information on flood preparation, including where to get sandbags, creek levels, and local rain gauge information is available at the water district's web site, www.valleywater.org.
By the numbers
-$200,000: Money spent by city to respond to Oct. 13 flood damage
-$140,000: Estimated damage to public property as a result of Oct. 13 storm (estimated damage to private property unavailable)
-$130 million: Total cost of Upper Llagas Creek Flood Protection Project, which would prevent similar flooding in the future
-23: Homes and businesses that suffered flood damage Oct. 13
-80: Percent of Oct. 13 flooding that could have been prevented by the Upper Llagas Creek project
Sources: City of Morgan Hill, Santa Clara Valley Water District
Michael Moore Michael Moore covers county and law enforcement issues for the Morgan Hill Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106, ext. 202, or mmoore@morganhilltimes.com.
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