Creek clearing still up in the air

Alicia Robinson

The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to continue the

emergency declaration for work on San Diego Creek, public works

director Kenneth R. Smith said.

Workers in the county’s public facilities and resources department

are continuing to clear vegetation from along the creek. The clearing

is part of a three-month project county officials said is needed to

reduce the risk of flooding in the creek, which could cause a sewage

spill from a nearby water reclamation plant into Upper Newport Bay.

The board of supervisors must vote every two weeks on whether to

continue the project’s emergency status, Smith said.

Thinning of vegetation has been completed in part of the 2.5-mile

project area, Smith said. Workers were expected to begin removing

vegetation outside a 40-foot buffer zone north of Campus Drive today,

he said.

While the work is still an emergency for the county, California

Coastal Commission officials last week rejected Orange County’s

request for an emergency permit to clear vegetation and sediment in

the coastal zone.

Smith said the county will apply for a nonemergency permit, a

request the Coastal Commission won’t hear until at least March.

Workers will wait for that permit to start work in the coastal zone,

he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers is still reviewing a permit

application the county submitted for the work, Smith said. The corps

has some jurisdiction over the project area.

Environmentalist Jan Vandersloot, who attended the county

supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, said he will continue to follow the

issue because the work is destroying vital animal habitat by the

creek.

“I still am quite concerned that this is not an emergency,” he

said. “They’re only making up an emergency because they don’t want to

go through the regulatory process.”