While they’re awaiting for Uncle Sam to open his purse, local
money is keeping a flood control project afloat.
MORGAN HILL
While they’re awaiting for Uncle Sam to open his purse, local money is keeping a flood control project afloat.
Morgan Hill and Santa Clara Valley Water District officials learned last week that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ San Francisco District has about $300,000 of their $600,000 left and is working on designs for the Llagas Creek Flood Protection Project.
Nicole Ortega, of the Corps, presented a tentative timetable for the $105-million project, which was among hundreds the U.S. Congress authorized through the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, passed last week following a vote to override a presidential veto. The Corps were in the design stage and construction wouldn’t start earlier than May 2013, Ortega said during a meeting Friday at City Hall to discuss the project.
Under WRDA, the federal government is responsible for $65 million, while the water district and the city’s share for the project is $40 million.
While WRDA authorizes the Corps to build the project, funds are allocated through the appropriations process. The project is intended to protect a large swath of Morgan Hill from flooding during severe storms.
To drum up support for the cause among the area’s Congressional delegation, board member Rosemary Kamei and the district’s director went to Washington, D.C. in early November, and the district is working with a lobbyist to secure $368,000 in the current fiscal year, said Scott Wilson with the district’s governmental relations unit. Kamei was doubtful that would happen.
“The problem is whether anything in appropriations will pass,” Kamei said. “Every time we think we move forward, we step back.”
