Chula Vista work won’t get help of stimulus funds

As the cost of the Chula Vista Flood Control Project climbs higher, Santa Cruz County got some disappointing news last week: No money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will come to the project, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District.

Two dozen other Corps projects in Southern California and Arizona will divide nearly $184 million from the “stimulus package,” the Corps said April 28.

Chula Vista didn’t rank high on the ARRA cost-benefit criteria, said County Manager Greg Lucero.

Daniel J. Calderon, a spokesman for the Corps in the Phoenix area office, said, “That doesn’t mean it’s (Chula Vista) out of the running for regular congressional funding.”

Gwen Meyer, project manager for the Army Corps Los Angeles District, now estimates the cost of the Chula Vista Project will reach $55 million, Calderon said.

The county laid the groundwork for the project in the mid-1990s to protect the low-lying Chula Vista and Pete Kitchen subdivisions north of Nogales from flooding during the monsoon season, said Ken Zehentner, county project manager. In December 2005, it signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do the flood control work.

Each year, the cost estimate for the multiphase project has inched upward, Zehentner said. In June 2008, the estimate for the project was about $42 million. Now the estimate is close to $52.5 million, he said last week before Meyer released the higher figure.

The Corps will pay the lion’s share and the county will pay about 10 percent of the cost from funds deposited from its flood-control levy, Zehentner said.

County supervisors approved a payment of $229,000 to the Corps on April 29 for federal fiscal year 2009, which began last October, Zehentner said. In 2008, the county paid the Corps $450,000 and in 2007, it paid about $950,000 for a total of $1,629,000.

The county has applied to the office of Congressman Raul Grijalva for an appropriation of $19,742,000 for Chula Vista, said Natalie Luna, press secretary for the congressman.

Request

Grijalva will also request $19,700,000 for repairs to the Nogales Wash and the International Outfall Interceptor (sewer line) in the city of Nogales. Its purpose is “to protect the residents and environment of southern Arizona from future flooding and a potential public health crisis,” reads the summary on Grijalva’s Web site.

Whether the funding gets the go-ahead is “up to the discretion of the appropriations committee,” Luna said. The request will be heard in the energy and water development subcommittee.

Letter

Supervisor Rudy Molera, District 2, wrote to Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl this week and used $52.5 million figure to ask for an appropriation of $22,330,000 to finish the project.

At the same time, Molera asked the senators to raise the expenditure level authorized for the project so the Army Corps could use any appropriated funds for the work. Currently, Section 902 of the Water Resources Development Act allows for only a 20 percent increase in the total project cost.

Luna expected Congress to begin debate on appropriations in late May or early June, she said. Any amount approved would be released in fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, 2009.