QUARTZ HILL'S PIPE DREAM; OFFICIALS ASK COUNTY TO LAY STORM DRAIN.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

With water running in the streets from El Nino storms, Quartz Hill civic leaders are trying to revive a flood-control project killed three years ago by lack of interest from business people.

Quartz Hill Town Council President Rod Stanfield and Quartz Hill Chamber of Commerce President Jan Tatangelo have asked Los Angeles County officials to try to scrape up enough money to lay a storm drain under 50th Street West, where rainwater Monday spilled over curbs and into some businesses.

``It's a huge problem,'' Tatangelo said Wednesday. ``Driving up 50th is just miserable. You have to put pontoons on, just about. It's pretty scary.''

The plan Quartz Hill leaders hope to revive would have built a $2 million underground storm drain from about Avenue M-4 to Avenue L, running a 3-foot-diameter pipe beneath 50th Street West.

The project would have been financed with about $500,000 from the Los Angeles County road department budget and about $1.5 million from the federal Community Development Block Grant program. But under federal rules, the block grant money must go toward helping primarily low- and moderate-income people, officials say.

Many business people objected to filling out applications that included questions on how much they pay their employees, and balked at making commitments to hiring low- and moderate-income workers. Others business people didn't fill out applications because they said the flooding didn't affect them.

Chamber of Commerce officials tried unsuccessfully twice in 1995 to get enough businesses to fill out the forms to apply for the grants, then-President Dody Garcia said.

They needed applications from 51 percent of the businesses that would benefit from the storm drain, but only about five were turned in from the 80 or so businesses surveyed, Garcia said.

``We couldn't get anybody off their chairs to do it,'' she said.

One of the business owners who filled out an application was Michelle Harnden of Desert Stars Dance Studio.

She had to close her 50th Street West shop Monday and Tuesday, canceling classes for 90 students Monday and 150 Tuesday, because flooded streets made it difficult or dangerous to get to her studio.

Even though the rain stopped Monday night, water emptying from a Lancaster catch basin was running deep Tuesday in the street outside Harnden's studio.

``It's curb-level water rushing at an enormous speed,'' she said.

County road department and Community Development Commission officials have been asked to determine if they can come up with the money again for the storm drain, said Dave Vannatta, an aide to county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

Even if it is feasible, the storm drain is likely to be installed over two or three years for financial reasons, Vannatta said.

``We're basically looking into whether we can do it,'' he said.

He said he expects the county departments to provide an answer in two weeks or so.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) (Ran in AV Edition only) Quartz Hill resident Dave Peterson clears debris from in front of his home on Avenue L-12 near 52nd Street West.

(2) (Ran in AV Edition only) Paramedics Matt Crawford, left, and Matt Stevens check out the flooding at their Avenue M station.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News