A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 21, 2007
3. Watersheds
Is dredging in
By Sally Connell, staff writer
Brett Cross remembers swimming, rowing and fishing in the clear, blue water of
Now, when the 43-year-old shows off old pictures at city meetings, some people don’t believe it’s the same muddy lake they now see off
In the 1960s and early 1970s, "it was basically a miniature
Fine sediment washing down Prefumo Creek off the Irish Hills over the years has built up and turned the lake — created in the 1960s — from blue to brown.
The question of whether to dredge that sediment and keep
The City Council recently voted to spend $10,000 on a study of the environmental ramifications of dredging the lake. But it allocated that amount only after it kept dredging off the list of "major city goals" for the 2007-09 budget cycle and relegated it to the "important goal" list — items that in reality are less likely to happen.
Very preliminary estimates indicate it could cost at least $3.5 million to dredge up the silt to ship it out, almost guaranteeing it won’t happen any time soon, said city leaders.
"It’s not an emergency," said City Engineer Barbara Lynch, stressing that it competes with other projects.
"When we have a situation where we have a lake which is not going to fill tomorrow and we’ve got this street with a giant hole that has to be fixed, we fix the hole," she said. "If we have a part we need down at the water treatment plant, it demands our immediate attention."
Digging up a marsh
It’s hard for those who remember
In the 1950s, the site was a marshy low spot. Developer Ray Skinner persuaded the city to let him dig up that spot in the 1960s and use the mud as foundation for some area neighborhoods.
Skinner also realigned Prefumo Creek to the lake to provide it with water, creating both its blue-water heyday and its brown-water present.
"It feeds the lake with water but also feeds the lake with sediment," Lynch said.
While such realignment of creeks would run into major hurdles with federal and state regulators today, it was easier in 1962.
Cross said he has never seen a full-fledged dredging at the lake, though city officials have cleared silt out of the Prefumo Creek arm.
On whether the full dredging will ever happen, Lynch said she tries not to speculate. The project has been under her purview for 15 years. She said it’s costly and could be a long-term project because little grant money is available for such recreation work.
The alternative is to pay for it out of city coffers. But even how to do that is up for debate. Many don’t want all city residents to have to pay most of the tab for something more important to people who live by the lake.
Even as its fate is debated, the lake fills with sediment a little more each year. And large storms, such as those in the winter of 1995-96, bring down tons of sediment, filling it even faster some years.
No stranger to politics
One constant about
Mayor Dave Romero was city public works director for 36 years starting in the 1950s and has long heard debate over the lake forming and later silting up.
Council members Christine Mulholland, Allen Settle and Paul Brown all have a conflict of interest concerning the lake because they live close to it.
City Attorney Jonathan Lowell said that when three council members have a conflict of interest on a five-member council, state law allows a system for choosing one who can vote on the issue. Otherwise, the council could never reach a quorum on the matter.
Brown was chosen as the person who can vote on lake-related matters during his remaining time on the council. He lives on a finger of the lake that has turned into a finger of mud. His backyard appears to be growing, though it’s really just the lake disappearing.
"When I first moved over here 15 years ago, you’d see people over there sailboarding," Brown said. "Now, they would get stuck in the mud."
He assumes some kind of assessment district paid for by people in the neighborhood might be in the future because he doesn’t believe other city residents would care much.
"It’s not necessarily a pleasant lake now. It turns colors on you," he said. "How it gets from where we are now to where we are in the future, I have no idea."
Uncertainty about dredging is not new, said Cross, who has lived alongside the lake his whole life.
He and many of his neighbors have promoted the concept of a special assessment district to pay for dredging, with city residents paying a small amount annually and lake neighbors paying more.
"Here’s my unfortunate scenario," Cross said. "We’ll have real heavy rains bring in incredible amounts of silt. People will look out and think there is still water there, and it will be all silted up." #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16944552.htm
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