Environmental work about to start on Buck Gully

June Casagrande

About two years after the city was awarded $222,000 in state money

for environmental improvements at Buck Gully, the beginning of the

project is finally in sight.

The state awarded the city the funds out of Proposition 13 bond

money. Voters approved the $2-billion bond in March 2000 to pay for a

variety of water-related programs statewide -- everything from flood

control projects to salmon protection.

Though the city secured a six-figure cut of the funds for

environmental improvements at Buck Gully, the city has been waiting

about two years for state and regional overseers to sign off on their

plan for the money.

“We’ve wrapped up some of the final details and now we hope that

the project could start May 15,” Asst. City Manager Dave Kiff said.

“We’ve been waiting nearly two years since we were awarded this

money.”

Kiff added that the city has been waiting all this time for the

Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board and the State Water

Resources Board to approve the project. The two agencies are

responsible for releasing bond money for many such projects

statewide.

Environmental improvements at Buck Gully will include programs to

reduce runoff into the channel.

Buck Gully, which serves as a drainage channel for Corona del Mar,

is considered by authorities to be polluted. Pesticides, animal waste

and other agents that wash from city streets into Buck Gully have

damaged the local habitats and have drained into Newport’s coastal

waters.

The money will also pay for habitat restoration, a public

education campaign and other measures to reverse the effects of

pollution.

The public education component might even include notifying

homeowners in the Buck Gully area of the types of plants they could

put in their yards to boost the local environment.