It’s a half-mile project, first envisioned in the 1980s, to protect residents and a fire station from flooding. But at the end of January, work came to a halt on the Chula Vista flood control project on Old Tucson Road.

Col. Thomas Magness, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, explains the plan to county supervisors. Julie Martinez (left) is the resident engineer for the project and Ken Zehentner (behind Magness) is the project manager for the county.

“Right now, we’re on suspension,” Julie Martinez, resident engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles division, told county supervisors who visited the site on March 20.

In 2007, workers deepened the channel of the Nogales Wash where it hugs the low-lying Chula Vista subdivision, said Ken Zehentner, Santa Cruz County project manager for the Corps’ project. They installed rip-rap, a layer of rocks to prevent erosion.

Last July, contractor Meridian Engineers Inc. of Tucson dismantled a bridge south of the Nogales Suburban Fire Station to straighten out two turns in the wash, Zehentner said. They planned to build a new bridge about 80 feet south, above the reconfigured channel.

But first they tried to relocate a section of the International Outfall Interceptor (sewer line) that lies below the wash to the east side of Old Tucson Road along the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

The Corps expected to find rock or hard material below the surface, Martinez said. “This turned out to be an ancient river bed. That water source did us in.”

After Meridian installed the new section, “it started to move and it started to crack,” Martinez said. “Water was spewing in.”

A sewer line expert told the Corps to abandon the line, Martinez said. “The plan now is to put in new pipe next to the existing sewer line.”

The current sewer line that runs west of Old Tucson Road is too high, she said. Because workers cut the channel deeper, that section of sewer line has to be lowered. But not right away.

“We’re going to backfill this hole �- to give us protection to do the sewer line,” Martinez said, gesturing south from the fire station. Meridian workers will soon return to begin filling and install rip-rap on the sides, Martinez said. “Until then, this bridge and road are out of service.”

The project has been going on for some 30 years, said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Manuel Ruiz. “Every year we wait, the price goes up and so does our cost.”

Ruiz estimated that the county had spent more than $5 million on the project.

“This is a tough little project,” said Col. Thomas Magness, district commander with the Corps. “You can’t put a sewer line in soup.”

Martinez noted that the railroad tracks were on good material, but a few feet away, “we found solid ground 65 feet down,” she said.

“The key thing is to button this up before it starts raining and maintain the level of (flood) protection,” Magness said.

Can the county get some of the federal economic stimulus money to complete the project? asked Ruiz and Supervisor Rudy Molera.

“This would be a great candidate,” Magness said.

Zehentner took about eight Chula Vista residents on a tour March 17 to see the progress just across the severed section of roadway. They had to drive north to Ruby Road and travel south on Old Tucson Road to reach the site by the fire station.

Wall installed

Meridian workers installed a wall and fence along the engineered channel, Zehentner said. “The fire department is protected. It won’t fall into the wash.”

Rafael Maytorena, a Chula Vista resident, wondered what happened to some $44 million spent on the project over the years, he said. “It’s not here.”

His neighbor Cecilia Valenzuela agreed. “How much money was allocated for the project?” she asked. “We’ve been asking for figures and they don’t have them.”

Valenzuela moved into the subdivision in 1980 and experienced major flooding in 1983, 1987-1988 and again in the 1990s, she said.

The Corps has spent $10,808,000 so far on the Chula Vista project, said Daniel Calderon, senior public affairs specialist.

At a March 3 meeting with Molera and pubic works representatives, Chula Vista residents said they were worried the job would not be done before monsoon season.

“Our original completion date was Sept. 29, 2008,” said Mark Branson, project manager for Meridian. Despite the setbacks, he can see a difference for the residents.

“Every year, that bank was eroding,” Branson said about the west wall that flanks the subdivision. “Water was undermining the dirt and concrete channel. People’s backyards could have washed away.”

With the deeper channel and its new walls, residents are “not going to spend their evenings watching the water rise,” he said.

When the Meridian workers return, they will take out the piles of dirt near the subdivision and put the dirt back where it came from, Branson said.

“We’ve had a great rapport with them (Chula Vista residents), Branson said. “We’re making every effort to put things back.”