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.
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