Pretty creek a plus, cleaner would be nice

Poor, poor Laguna Creek. And poor us. What a sight it is, and what a

sight it could be.

With that future in mind, we’re thrilled the creek is getting some

attention and hope the implementation process is short and sweet.

Everyone is for a more aesthetic, nature-friendly creek, but that

doesn’t necessarily mean a quick or smooth cleanup or reparation

project.

These things cost money and somehow take much more time to get

started than anyone anticipates.

Right now, the Laguna Canyon Conservancy is providing the forum

for people like Wastewater Advisory Board member Melissa O’Neal and

landscape architect Bob Borthwick to discuss the issue. Laguna

Greenbelt and the Beautification Council also support the cleanup,

and the City Council has already chipped in $500 toward the effort.

Things look good. Let’s hope it continues this way and more community

groups and individuals jump on the pretty-creek bandwagon.

The good news is, it will be privately funded, meaning groups and

individuals who want to pitch in, can, and there won’t be much

politicking about it to slow things down.

The bad news is, the efforts aren’t focused on clean water.

The plan is to landscape around the creek to restore the native

planting. The added brush and dirt will go toward absorbing and

therefore slowing some of the water, now picking up everything in the

channel and running quickly down a cement channel toward the ocean.

The speeding water has been blamed for flooding issues where the

channel narrows, and pollution problems, such as the channel carrying

everything in its path to the ocean.

The need to address the issue has been on both the clean-water and

flood-control priority lists. The flooding problem would have been

addressed by a proposed flood control channel project on Broadway.

The city turned down $10 million in county and federal money to pay

for the project in June of 2002. There were concerns about tearing up

Broadway and that some of the refurbishing ideas would have led to

more pollution.

Maybe that plan wasn’t the best for the city as a whole, but we

can’t just give up. It needs to be a priority of city leaders to both

protect from flooding and get a handle on pollution. So, while we’re

looking into making the creek more natural, or just shielding it in

some places, let’s keep in mind the bigger picture.