Rain-swollen creek's future in debate

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Saturday, January 15, 2005 10:37 PM PST ∞

CARLSBAD ----- From opposite sides of the bank last week, the parties involved in a dispute over a business park development watched La Mirada Creek turning into a raging river as a series of storms dumped rain on North County last week.

For environmentalists, the sediment-filled, murky brown water churning down the creek's channel and tearing away the surrounding vegetation was proof that La Mirada Creek can't take any more development along its banks.

"Now, (the creek) is a torrent every time we have a rain ---- huge volumes of water ---- and it didn't used to be like that," said Diane Nygaard of the environmental group Preserve Calavera which works on issues related to the Mt. Calavera region in northeastern Carlsbad.

For city planners and worried residents of Rancho Carlsbad Mobile Home Park along El Camino Real just south of Cannon Road, the creek's rapidly rising water level is confirmation that the final part of a regional flood control project --- the part that will accompany the controversial business park development along the creek ---- should move forward as soon as possible.

"They say if we get the 100-year flood (event), we are the first to go," said mobile-home park resident Gloria Mahrdt, who has lived along the banks of La Mirada Creek for 24 years.

In an effort to prevent the mobile-home park from flooding, the city wants to put a water retention basin and a creek-flow constriction device upstream. Environmentalists, the city and the park's developer are battling in court over the project, which would go in the proposed Carlsbad Oaks North development on the city's border with Vista near Palomar Airport Road.

Seeking a court order

Paid for by the developer, the La Mirada Creek project is one of four flood control efforts in central Carlsbad's creeks. Two basins along Calavera Creek have already been built by other developers. The third basin, which like the fourth will go along La Mirada Creek, is under construction as part of the Carlsbad Raceway business park project.

Out of the four, the Carlsbad Oaks North project has generated the most controversy. The developer's planned business park already wasn't popular with area environmentalists who see the undeveloped canyon as a haven for area wildlife. Initially, environmentalists wrote letters and testified at various public hearings on issues relating to the project.

Late last year, Preserve Calavera filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arguing that the Corps didn't do a good job of reviewing the project and that it shouldn't have issued wetlands permits for it.

The group's request for a preliminary restraining order was denied by a federal judge in San Diego this month, but Preserve Calavera's leaders said they will continue to pursue legal action.

Meanwhile, the developer ---- TechBilt Construction --- is starting work on the 415-acre site. As the rainstorms slackened Wednesday, environmental consultants were doing initial surveying work and water quality testing in the creek. Clearing and grading of the site is slated to begin once the soil dries out a bit, TechBilt Vice President Ted Tchang said.

Bringing in the roads

TechBilt plans to build the business park in three phases, with each coming two years after the previous one, Tchang said. A total of 23 pads for prospective businesses will be graded, with at least one area ---- the section at the future intersection of Faraday Avenue and El Fuerte Street ---- reserved for restaurants or other service-related businesses, he said. Out of the 415 acres, 219 will be preserved as open space.

The company expects to have a mix of tenants in the park, but hasn't signed any clients yet because construction has been delayed by the lawsuit, Tchang said. His company also built the nearby Carlsbad Oaks business park, which is home to an optics company and baseball card producers Upper Deck, among other businesses.

For the city of Carlsbad, the highlight of the planned Carlsbad Oaks North project isn't the business park or even the flood control basin ---- it's the roadways the developer must build.

TechBilt is required to construct the long-sought extensions of Faraday Avenue and El Fuerte Street. Two neighboring businesses park projects are handling the extension of Melrose Drive, and the new roadways are expected to provide more east-west corridors for commuters and reduce the traffic on the heavily congested Palomar Airport Road.

"We really need this road," city associate engineer Clyde Wickham said of the Faraday extension. "This road is going to be parallel to Palomar. It will take 20,000 vehicles (off Palomar) once it opens."

Building a bridge

Initially, the city considered requiring the developer to build a bridge over the creek as part of the extension of Faraday, Wickham said. The bridge proposal is something the environmentalists have argued the city should revisit.

Wickham said the idea was dropped because of the high price tag and the proposed flood control project.

A bridge would have cost $3 million, while the plans to put part of the creek through a culvert and run the road over an earthen levee structure are running about $100,000, Wickham said. In addition to the expense, there wasn't much point in building the bridge because the flood control project required that the creek go into a culvert for part of its trip downstream, he added.

The culvert, which is bigger than a house door, acts as a water-flow restriction device. It's wide at the upstream end and narrow at the downstream portion. During an extremely heavy rainfall period ---- such as the rainfall that occurred last week ---- the culvert would start to restrict the amount of water flowing downstream and the waiting water could start to back up into the retention basin. Later, as the run-off into the creek subsided, the basin would empty.

Finding a solution

Residents in the mobile home park said last week they are looking forward to seeing whether the project improves conditions along the creek. Many, including Mahrdt, spent the week keeping tabs on the water level from the windows of their mobile homes.

"From our kitchen, we've got the best view of the water rising," she said.

Walking into her neighbor's back yard, she pointed out a horizontal tree that had its roots dug out by the rapidly rushing water. Several years ago, a creekside bench was washed away during a winter storm, she said.

Nygaard, who walked along Carlsbad's creeks Wednesday assessing their condition following the storm, said she sympathizes with the mobile-home park residents but believes that the flood control project won't help improve the health of the troubled creek.

"These are long-term, cumulative, chronic problems ... there (are not any) easy solutions," she said, describing how development along the creek has changed run-off patterns and caused erosion issues.

She added that Calavera Creek was still a rapidly moving, sediment-filled body of water last week despite its new water retention basins.

City officials said while the storms brought a lot of rain to the area, there wasn't enough rainfall to cause significant water levels to backup in the retention basins.

Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.

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