Pamo Dam Gets EPA Rejection Slip : Federal Agency’s Action Coincides With Quitting of Water Board Chief

The controversial plan to flood a pristine valley near Ramona in order to create a giant reservoir encountered another setback this week when federal environmental officials advised against approval of a permit to build the $86-million Pamo Dam.

In a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a top official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the San Diego County Water Authority had failed to explore adequately an alternative to the environmentally destructive Pamo project.

Charles Murray Jr., assistant regional administrator of the EPA in San Francisco, also said his agency did not believe that the authority’s plan to mitigate the environmental damage would fully compensate for losses of animal habitat.

“Based on these concerns, EPA continues to recommend that no permit be issued for this project as described in the final environmental impact statement,” Murray wrote in the letter, addressed to the Army Corps of Engineers, which is expected to make a decision on the permit soon.

Meanwhile, Lawrence R. Michaels, the water authority’s general manager and the man most closely associated with the agency’s dogged pursuit of the Pamo project since the early 1980s, on Thursday night submitted his resignation to the board, citing “the burden of the job.”

Michaels, who immediately set out on a two-week vacation, after which his resignation is to become effective, agreed to continue to work on the Pamo project as a consultant to the authority for one year, said Pete Rios, a spokesman for the authority.

Michaels’ resignation came amid turmoil at the agency, which is charged with assuring the delivery of water to San Diego County. The turmoil involved some staff members’ criticism of Michaels’ management style, described as highly centralized.

In December, an assistant general manager that Michaels had hired two years earlier resigned. According to published newspaper reports, his letter of resignation stated that significant differences in the two men’s styles had diluted his effectiveness.

Rios said late Friday that those problems as well as the relentless demands inherent in pursuing the Pamo project apparently played a part in Michaels’ resignation, which came during a three-hour private session with the water authority board Thursday night.

However, Rios noted that Michaels “seemed to be not overly concerned about the letter” from the EPA earlier in the day, when he made his usual monthly update to the board on the authority’s progress toward getting permission to go ahead with Pamo Dam.

The project would consist of a 264-foot-high concrete dam across Santa Ysabel Creek and would flood 1,800 acres in Pamo Valley. The reservoir would hold about 130,000 acre-feet of water for use in emergencies by San Diego County.

Attached to the project would be the largest water reclamation project in San Diego County history, reclaiming 11,000 acre-feet of treated waste water. The $11-million project would replenish depleted supplies and improve ground water quality in the San Pasqual Valley.

In his 11-page correspondence to the Corps of Engineers, Murray noted that the proposed project “will result in irreversible losses of riparian and wetland habitat and significant impact to other types of sensitive and undisturbed habitat. . . . Riparian wetland resources and their ecological productivity are of great importance to fish and wildlife. These areas are becoming increasingly scarce in Southern California and much of it is degraded and threatened by development.”

Murray suggested that the city and water authority reconsider alternatives they rejected in their environmental impact statement. Under one alternative, water from the Colorado River would be “banked” in Lake Mead in wet years for use in dry years.

He said the EPA is also concerned over the authority’s massive habitat-replacement plan, which would attempt to create new woodland, wetland and grassland habitat in the San Pasqual Valley. Murray wrote, “EPA believes it does not fully compensate for project-related habitat losses.”

For example, he said, the plan fails to recognize the damaging effects of “habitat fragmentation” on wildlife. He also said the agency fears the consequences of the planned continuation of sand mining in the San Pasqual Valley and its effects on the success of the mitigation plan.

Even so, Rios remained hopeful that the dam will be built.

“These are the kind of setbacks we’ve had since we started the project,” he said, referring to the numerous objections the authority has had to answer so far. “ . . . Now it looks to us that we have another hurdle to go over. I’m sure we’re going to pursue the project as aggressively as we have in the past.

“We’re not going to abandon the project, if anyone is getting that idea.”

It has been expected that the Corps of Engineers would make a decision on the permit later this month. Corps and EPA officials were unavailable late Friday to comment on the significance of the letter and how it might affect the decision.

Michaels, too, could not be reached for comment.

The 52-year-old engineer was hired as the authority’s general manager in February, 1984, after 4 1/2 years as special projects manager. His appointment appeared to symbolize the board’s desire for a manager willing to take a high-profile position on politically tinged water questions.

One of those turned out to be the Pamo project.

“He threw all his energies into that one because it was such a demanding thing,” Rios said. “Things just kept changing; new requirements and mitigations had to be met. . . . And the financing of the project, which was a huge enterprise in itself.”

Michaels also became associated with negotiations on a controversial scheme under which the authority might buy 60% of its water from a private Colorado corporation. The company, the Galloway Group of Meeker, Colo., proposed to dam the Colorado River to collect the water, an idea that Rios said is now “on the back burner.”

Late Thursday, after nearly 12 hours of meetings with the water authority board, Michaels emerged from the executive session and said he had resigned. Rios said Michaels told the board that “the burden of the job was overwhelming.”