Article taken from the Santa
Barbara News Press
Published with permission
Bridge plan heads
for more debate
February 13, 2006 4:43 AM
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A $3.9 million plan for a new bridge and entrance road
at Gaviota State Park is getting mixed reviews from local citizens
and state and federal agencies, even as county officials give it their
blessing.
The project was designed by the county Public Works Department with
the approval of the county Planning Commission, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, state Office of Emergency Services and Hollister Ranch Owners
Association, whose 170 full-time members use the bridge through this
protected wetland to reach their rural subdivision west of the park.
"The goal of the project is to pass people safely across Gaviota Creek,
365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Deputy Public
Works Director Scott McGolpin. "God forbid people try to cross the
creek when there's water in it. The county doesn't want to see anybody
killed out there. We want to build the bridge. We want to save lives."
The funding for the bridge was guaranteed by FEMA on the condition
that it would be finished by August 2007. To meet that deadline, Mr.
McGolpin said, construction must begin by this coming July.
"The money we've got on this project is highly competitive," he said. "We
went nationwide to get this funding."
But the bridge project appears to be headed for more debate, FEMA deadlines
or not. In a Dec. 19 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the
federal Environmental Protection Agency objected to issuing a permit
for the project to go forward, arguing that it would damage the marsh
and channel in the meandering waters of Gaviota Creek in violation
of the federal Clean Water Act.
At the same time, the staff of the state Coastal Commission, another
agency that must issue permits for the bridge, advised the county Planning
Commission to consider less damaging alternatives, noting, among other
things, that the project would remove a eucalyptus grove where monarch
butterflies roost.
The county's project would require a 70-foot-wide, 780-foot-long dirt
and rock embankment, a sort of dike through the wetland, raising the
entrance road to match the height of the new bridge.
The "environmentally superior" but more expensive alternative, as listed
in a county report, would be to build a causeway across the creek,
in effect extending the bridge in a continuous span across the wetland
area.
Recently, the Gaviota Coast Conservancy, a nonprofit group headed by
Mike Lunsford, formerly the resources ranger at Gaviota State Park
for 22 years, filed an appeal of the Planning Commission's decision
to the county Board of Supervisors.
"Instead of two lanes on a little country road, this amounts to a huge
high-speed boulevard through the wetland,"
Mr. Lunsford said. "The real problem is not the impacts to public safety,
it's the impacts to the park facilities and wetland resources and stream
bank itself."
Gaviota Creek was recently designated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration as a critical habitat for the endangered Southern California
steelhead trout. It also is recognized as one of the most important
creeks on the South Coast for such rare and sensitive species as California
red-legged frogs, tidewater gobies and Southwestern pond turtles.
The wetland vegetation itself is weedy, having emerged as a dense thicket
after the Gaviota fire of 2004. It is not known if the stream willows
that burned in the fire will be able to fight the weeds and come back.
The county's report on the bridge project estimates that just more
than three acres of wetland would be lost to construction, counting
a portion that must be removed to make way for a temporary road into
the park. For every acre lost, the county would have to replant up
to five acres of wetland in the park. Willow trees, for example, would
be planted among piles of boulders brought in to fortify the road embankment.
The report concludes that the only significant impact of the bridge
project would be construction noise.
But even the Planning Commission, which voted 4-1 in favor of the bridge
project, appears to be having second thoughts. The proposed road and
bridge are designed to withstand a 100-year flood, but they would not
prevent flooding in the campground, and the park would continue to
close to visitors in bad weather.
"We all felt it was too bad we had to go this far,"
said Commissioner Parker Montgomery, a former Hollister Ranch property
owner. "Having commuted through that causeway for 15 years, I was happy
until we had those major problems in the '90s. Something had to be
done, but I think this may very well be overkill. I think we're at
a point where we're open to good ideas."
As proposed, the bridge would be 260 feet long and 36 feet wide, including
space for bicycle lanes. It would rest on pilings high enough to allow
12 feet of clearance above Gaviota Creek. To match the bridge height,
the entrance road would be rebuilt on top of a dirt embankment 12 feet
high and 70 feet wide, requiring the county to dump about 50,000 cubic
yards of fill into the wetland. A layer of boulders would be placed
along the embankment to "armor" it against the flood waters.
The bridge would replace an 80-foot-long, 4-foot-high concrete road
crossing that was built by the county in 1997. The crossing was a failure:
It was clogged with debris by the end of the El Ni0x96o winter of 1998.
Now, even small storms will send water over the top, and road closures
may last from several hours to three or four days.
"I've seen residents of the ranch walking across the railroad trestle
and risking their lives to get out and get basic necessities," Mr.
McGolpin said.
But the state Department of Parks and Recreation is not sure whether
the county's plan will properly protect either the campground or the
wetland.
"We're asking the county to verify their hydrological reports," said
Richard Rojas, the state parks district superintendent for Santa Barbara
County and western Ventura County. "I want to make sure the design
does not impact a diminishing wetland and estuary. We're down to less
than 1 percent of all the wetlands we have in state history."
Mr. Rojas is worried the proposed embankment would prevent water from
reaching some portions of the marsh, while creating a man-made channel
that directs storm flows toward the campground. The department spent
$2 million in 1994 restoring visitor services at the park and does
not want to jeopardize that investment, Mr. Rojas said.
"We have to be careful as park stewards," he said. "We don't want the
county to lose their money . . . but maybe the best suggestion is for
the county to involve more of the environmental community in the design."
A driving force behind the project has been the Hollister Ranch Owners
Association, the only citizens group to be invited to the table during
three years of discussions between the county, FEMA, the state Office
of Emergency Services and state parks.
Association president Robert Rebstock and director Kim Kimbell did
not return a reporter's calls recently. But in a letter last summer
to the county about the bridge project, Thomas Frutchey, the ranch
manager, asserted that "for every negative impact, there is an offsetting,
if not greater positive impact."
When the park road is closed because of flooding, ranch residents have
no access to fire, sheriff or paramedic services, Mr. Frutchey noted,
adding: "The primary impacts of the replacement bridge will be to restore
and ensure access to full-time residential occupancies in Santa Barbara
County."
To this, Mr. Lunsford of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy responds: "When
you want to live in a remote area like this, you have to accept the
burden that comes along with that benefit. The roads are not going
to be like boulevards in Goleta."
The conservancy favors building a causeway or moving the bridge half
a mile north where the creek narrows. Either of these alternatives,
according to the EPA, "would allow the creek to meander freely across
the floodplain and would not increase stream velocities downstream."
But the county's Mr. McGolpin contends that Caltrans would not support
moving the left turn north on 101 to a new crossing, unless an overpass
is built there. As for a causeway, he said, it would cost $1.2 million
more to build than the bridge and elevated road.
The county has already spent $880,000 in FEMA and state Office of Emergency
Services funds to design this project and will not likely get any new
funding to start from scratch again, Mr. McGolpin said. Plus, he said,
it would take a year to draw up new plans.
"If we don't move forward, we're going to lose the FEMA funding and
the public safety project."