Spreading Danger
Flood-control basin hasn't gotten any safer

When even two U.S. senators are frustrated over the lack of progress in addressing public safety issues in local canyons, trouble is brewing.
And local residents particularly homeowners should take note.

Four years after asking for a state investigation of whether Deer Canyon Debris Basin in Rancho Cucamonga could handle a worst-case storm, Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are perturbed that nothing has been
done to address the peril posed to homes and schools below the canyon.

Once the study found the flood-control basin is too small to guarantee protection, Boxer and Feinstein, along with state Resources Secretary Mary D. Nichols, recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers and the county Flood Control District enlarge the basin.

Yet the basin remains the same size it was when the Army Corps completed it almost a quarter century ago, and handed it over to San Bernardino County.

County officials, while claiming the area is safe, have acknowledged it is undersized. They asked for a FEMA grant last year of $330,000 to enlarge the basin. The grant was denied.

With the problem uncorrected, even after the senators' behest, the Flood Control District is nonetheless in the midst of appraising 1,137 acres of land in the spreading grounds below the basin for a possible land settlement with the Colonies developers in Upland.

If the deal were to go through, more homes could go up. And they could be right in the path of the next 100-year storm, at the foot of a canyon debris basin that has been deemed too small to handle it.

It's a scenario that doesn't sit right with Boxer, who has asked her staff for a full report and inquiry of all relevant agencies connected with Deer Canyon flood control.

Meanwhile, the county's appraisal of the spreading grounds below Deer Canyon is expected by the end of the month.

One has to wonder if the pencil pushers are working in a vacuum, or whether they catch the drift that building on that land is potentially dangerous.

But then, isn't the Alluvial Fan Task Force, which nearly a year later has yet to begin work, supposed to confront such issues? It had better, before it's too late.