Local officials will make the obligatory request for more federal money for the Upper Llagas Creek flood protection project, though the prospects for such funding are dim.
Local officials will make the obligatory request for more federal money for the Upper Llagas Creek flood protection project, though the prospects for such funding are dim.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District board of directors Tuesday approved a request to the U.S. Congress for $2 million to go toward the design, environmental study and property acquisition phases of the project.
That’s on top of a $2 million request for the same efforts submitted to the federal government last year, to which the local sponsor is still waiting a response.
Director Don Gage said he would be “pleasantly surprised” if the federal government honors the request, as previous recent requests have been unanswered, and federal officials have said they will not fund “earmarks” in the 2012 budget.
“They keep saying they aren’t putting any appropriations in (the federal budget), and that’s where that money would come from,” Gage said. “But we need the money, and they promised us the money,” Gage said.
The Upper Llagas Creek project will provide flood protection along the 13-mile stretch of the creek which passes through Morgan Hill, along the west side of Monterey Road. When completed, the project will protect 1,100 homes, 500 businesses and more than 1,300 acres of farmland along the 13-mile stretch of the creek from flooding during strong storms.
The lead sponsor for the $120-million project is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who will be responsible for construction, after the design, environmental study, right-of-way acquisition and utility improvements are completed by local sponsors, who include the SCVWD and city of Morgan Hill.
Downtown Morgan Hill is a periodic victim of the flooding that would be eliminated by the Upper Llagas Creek project. The city has flooded more than a dozen times since 1937 – most recently in 2009 when about seven inches of rain fell on Morgan Hill in one day.
“It’s not a good year to be optimistic when they’re not doing earmarks,” Mayor Steve Tate said.
That storm and resulting floods caused about $140,000 worth of damage to public property. Floods in the same area in 1997 and 1998 caused about $150,000 and $200,000 in property damage, respectively, according to SCVWD staff.
The project would extend from Wright Avenue south to Buena Vista Avenue in San Martin.
In 2009, impatient with the repeated denial of federal funds, the city and water district agreed to spend a combined $10 million to complete the pre-construction work, in hopes of being reimbursed by the federal government. Once the environmental study and design are completed, “we’ll be ready to start construction and asking for bigger allocations,” Tate said.
The sponsors are used to the delays, which cause other financial impacts such as the need for a $577,000 budget adjustment, also approved by the SCVWD board Tuesday, for local cost overruns on the Llagas Creek project. Most of that cost was due to the need for an updated survey of the project area, as the last survey – completed in 2001 – is so old it no longer passes Corps standards.
Those funds will be spent from parcel tax revenues obtained through the water district’s capital reserves in the Clean Safe Creeks fund – an initiative approved by voters in 2000 to provide the $40-million local share of the Upper Llagas Creek improvements.
