Meeting to Address Flood Management

Sun Valley residents will learn about a proposal to solve the area’s flood problems at a public meeting Wednesday evening with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

The department plans what it calls “an organic approach” to flood-control--including the construction of a combination park and flood basin similar to Los Angeles’ Pan Pacific Park, said Carl Blum, deputy director of the public works department.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s a park with playground equipment, soccer fields, a baseball field . . . ,” Blum said. “Then a few days a year during the heavy rains it would be used to capture water. Instead of flooding down streets, it would be diverted into these areas.”

Because Sun Valley has no storm drains, heavy rains cause significant flooding each year. On rainy days, as many as 1,000 area kids miss school because roads become impassable, said Manuel Rangell, principal of Sun Valley Middle School.

“My concern is that hundreds of instructional hours are lost because students miss school during inclement weather,” Rangell said.

The department is leaning toward long-term, sustainable solutions to water management, Blum said.

“The typical approach is just to build a big storm drain underneath the street where we basically take the water and rush it as quickly as we can toward the ocean,” Blum said. “What we’re looking at now is a whole different set of circumstances. We’re trying to save more of this storm water.”

Other options are being considered, said Joel Bellman, spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

“Some of the features of this multipurpose project include things like retention basins, removing pavement and getting back to the earth so the water can soak in and eventually seep into the ground-water table, cisterns to store water and tree planting so the water is absorbed in the roots of the trees,” Bellman said.

TreePeople, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the greening of Los Angeles, provided research for the project and will take an active role in replacing concrete with plantings should the plan be approved, said the group’s president, Andy Lipkis.

“It gives a lot of hope for the future of Los Angeles and the world that we’re finally working together and doing the right thing for the environment and the people,” Lipkis said.

Blum, Lipkis and Rangell will attend Wednesday’s meeting, along with state legislators who represent the area and David Tokofsky, the Los Angeles Unified School District board member who helped organize the move to improve Sun Valley’s drainage.

The meeting is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sun Valley Middle School, 7330 Bakman Ave. For more information, call (818) 623-4864.