Residents in the Shelltown neighborhood along Beta Street were quick to blame the city for failing to keep the channel clean before an atmospheric river hit. Many count the clogged channel as another example of neglect these residents feel by their city government.
But the city can’t just dredge or deep clean a channel when it wants to, at least, that’s what Kris McFadden, San Diego’s deputy chief operating officer, explained during a press conference last week in response to angry residents whose homes were swallowed by the Chollas Creek topping its banks.
That’s because the city’s channels and creeks, even if lined with concrete, are considered wetlands and protected and regulated by several state and federal agencies, McFadden said.
San Diego’s management is the swamp that needs draining, and it isn’t wetlands.
Spot on comment.
They voted for it, they can live with it.
I like when they use the new term “atmospheric river” to describe “a lot of rain” as though it’s never happened before and had to dream up new hyperbole as “a lot of rain” had worn out as a means of frightening the kids into action.
Hopefully Apple will have an emoji to use in place of “atmospheric river” as it’s a lot to repeatedly type out on a phone while driving.
A series of earth quakes will render Cali into the true Mad Max distopia that Hollywierd could never dream up.
They dodged a bullet the other day. It was Oprah’s 70th birthday and they showed her jogging down the beach
Creek channels like Chollas and others weren’t built to hold intensifying rains from human-caused climate change.
The authour just couldn’t help himself.
Unlike authors such as this dweeb … and MOST of this State’s residents … I have lived here for 68 years and my family settled in San Diego in 1919 … where they operated one of the very few gas stations in the area. And let me say unequivocally from LIVED experience … our rains are absolutely NOT “intensifying”. What a load of tosh.
And pray tell me HOW on God’s Green Earth can an Army Corps of Engineers concrete culvert be described and regulated as a “wetland”? Good God! We’ve jumped the shark ages ago and are now jumping unicorns.
hi kenji, re your Q: after decades of navigating a world steeped in unwritten rules, euphemisms, body language and such allow me. re ‘wetlands’ this designation comes from some corner drenched in the need for exactitude in interpretations; the *interpretation* is the thing. *interpretations* are open ended and thus common sense is not a criterion but rather merely coincidental.
l believe this explains a great deal of regulatory bizarreness. as in concrete = nature preserve. or something. let another bureaucrap figure that out on their watch.
C’mon, man! The definition of ‘wetlands’ is clear and precise.
If someone so much as spits on the sidewalk, it becomes a wetland and is therefore regulated by the federal government.
And the reason local governments can’t fill potholes is because they get puddles in the bottom, thus becoming wetlands And, as we all know, you can’t disturb a wetland.
Well herself needs to put her master’s degree to work:
“Master’s degree in climate science and policy from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Experienced journalist, writer and editor. Speaks Spanish.”
She isn’t using it otherwise
I noticed in the accompanying photograph that the houses were built close to the drainage system. It is like the idiots who build on flood plains and then are “all surprised” when it floods. I lived in Calgary in June 2013 when all of downtown, the flats north of the Bow Rive and Elbow Park flooded with water filling all of the basements. My house was further out in the suburbs and NOT on a flood plain. Even Jesus in the New Testament had a parable about building your house on a rock foundation instead of on sand.
The “stupid” is strong in CA!
It’s a drought! Until it isn’t..
“Why do they call this place High River? Looks fine to me!”
Silly humans, seeking to control that which they don’t understand, in hopes that will make it better..
I remember the floods in Medicine Hat years ago, occurred right after I bought my first house (of course). A 100 years flood, doesn’t mean that it happens every hundred years, it means 100 year max LEVEL. There were several more floods, afterwards..
My next house was up on the bench lands!
A “100 year flood” has a 1% chance of happening each year.
Face palm. High River isn’t named for the floods. Internet is your friend.
Highwood river, where the town was built beside and around, has the same stupid rules. Spend millions on dykes instead of a few thousand to dredge because some fish ‘plant’ their eggs in a couple of the river bends.
From the article “Even if they’re (authorized) to clean (Chollas Creek) out, it doesn’t mean they have the money,” Gibson said.
There’s the problem, instead of spending revenue on municipal infrastructure maintenance, politicians piss it away on pet projects that have little to do with maintaining a city and civil servants create projects and interpretations of legislation to ensure the survival of their sinecures.
Those are the problems, not global worming (sic)
^^^^100%^^^^
And that’s the same reason CAL TRANS cannot seem to fix the pitted and potted freeways in this State. Driving in CA REQUIRES a massive SUV with heavy duty suspension, lifted wheels, and balloon Tires.
All despite having the largest number of vehicles in the nation … by FAR … and the HIGHEST gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, tolls, and tariffs in the nation. $$Cha-ching!!$$ … being redistributed into mass plebe transit (that nobody rides)
“Atmospheric river”.
Yet another term introduced to us to cover for weather manipulation. Much as new previously-unknown clouds were added to the lexicon with the surge in chem-trailing in recent years.
But hey, gotta “prove” the anti-scientific lie of global warming somehow to implement the next phase of crushing peoples’ freedoms and remaining wealth…
They’re “wet”-lands because they’re full of homeless urine and feces.
When there are no houses around to flood it’s just rain. A guy builds a house in a swamp, drainage is poor, it’s a lot of rain. Subdivision shows up, they fill in the swamp and it rains – catastrophic atmospheric river of climate change resulting from the burning of too much fossil fuel. Therefore we need higher taxes.
Once when driving into San Diego with friends, as we were transiting Mission Valley, my wife said ” looks to me like those houses and shopping centers are built in a dry gully (arroyo – but we live in Australia) and will flood when there is a decent thunderstorm upstream.”
Our American friends congratulated her on the observation as she wasn’t even a civil engineer.
I’m all for habitat but we need habitat as well.. The government does not agree..
Looks like a wash, but, even washes over flow.