Countywide : Flood Control Study Funds Are Restored

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday, restoring a disputed $4 million for continuing engineering studies on the $1.3-billion Santa Ana River flood control project.

Funds were deleted last summer in what Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) charged were “hardball politics” by Democrats attempting to get even for Republicans’ support of a GOP opponent of Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside) in the 1984 election.

Project supporters feared the $4-million deletion could delay the project for a year but succeeded in restoring the funds in the Senate version of the bill. Brown and other House Democrats said they had legitimate concerns about the funding but later agreed to drop opposition to the Senate proposal.

The House acted by voice vote Thursday to approve the final version of the energy and water appropriations bill for fiscal 1986. It is expected to reach the Senate for a final vote early next week.

Plans to control the Santa Ana River have been tied up in Congress for years, despite warnings that a major flood could kill an estimated 3,000 people and cause $14 billion in damage in Orange County alone. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considers it to be one of the worst flood threats in the nation.

Both the House and Senate still must authorize the project and then appropriate funds for it. Authorization is expected to be considered later this year in an omnibus water projects bill.

The overall plan calls for widening and deepening the Santa Ana River channel in Orange County, raising Prado Dam near Corona by 30 feet to increase its holding capacity and building an upstream dam in the San Bernardino Mountains.