SUN VALLEY FLOOD CONTROL EYED $100 MILLION DRAINAGE PROJECT PLANNED.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

As sure as rain will fall, Sun Valley will flood.

That's been the reality for the last 30 to 40 years in this stretch of the Northeast San Fernando Valley, where a mere storm can force children to cross the road knee-deep in water and turn major thoroughfares into rivers.

Here, streets were built without storm drains to whisk rain water away, and promises to fix the problems have never been fulfilled. Now a new solution is on the horizon that promises to do more than just stop the flooding.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works is proposing a massive, $100 million watershed project that aims to catch runoff over a four-square-mile area, filter it and store it underground to reuse and to replenish groundwater. Plans also call for new soccer fields, trees and a flower-filled park to help absorb heavy rainfall.

The county will start work in December on an environmental review of the project. Work is scheduled to begin next summer in Sun Valley Park, the first of four pilot projects to kick off the watershed plan.

Similar projects are planned for Sun Valley Middle School, the Valley Steam Plant and the corner of Tuxford Avenue and San Fernando Road, which are all scheduled to start in 2004.

The Sun Valley Watershed Project could create a new face for the community in the next decade, as well as demonstrate smarter stormwater management for the rest of the nation. But organizers will have to first convince Sun Valley residents that this promise will become a reality and raise enough funding for the project.

County officials so far have allocated only $42 million for the project but expect to raise the remaining $60 million through city, state and federal agencies looking to improve pollution control, water conservation and local parklands. The project may also qualify for recent voter-approved state water and park project funds.

Los Angeles is the first metropolitan area in the nation to try collecting runoff on such a grand scale.

``It will become a pilot and a model for the rest of the nation on how to deal with water,'' said project manager Vik Bapna, an engineer with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. ``I get goose bumps talking about it.''

The premise is simple.

The project entails building basins in some spots to catch and hold water for irrigation or other uses. In other areas there would be drains to direct water to underground caverns where it could seep back into the aquifer.

The water-catching project could cost twice as much and take twice as long to build compared with a traditional storm drain, but Bapna predicts the new project will provide three times the benefit.

It stops the flooding, conserves water and lessens river and ocean contamination. And that's extra benefit to a community that's long felt ignored by local government leaders.

Vicki Burch, who has lived with the Sun Valley flooding for 33 years, has watched the water-catching project develop and is behind it ``110 percent.''

But her neighbors are skeptical because of past failed plans to stop flooding. ``People are looking very skeptically at how this is going to be accomplished,'' Burch said. ``They think the city and the state aren't going to do anything anyway.''

City and county engineers have been talking since the 1970s about controlling the flooding in Sun Valley. They got close. The county had $42 million to build a storm drain system to catch rain runoff and pipe it to the ocean, but plans were pushed aside after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

In 1998 the county returned to the drawing table. But this time, officials were beginning to discuss the drawbacks of a storm drain system, namely channeling polluted runoff into the Los Angeles River and the Santa Monica Bay. And environmental groups and water agencies were looking for better ways to manage Los Angeles' natural resources.

Roughly 15 percent of the city's water supply comes from groundwater, most of which is pumped from the San Fernando Valley. Historically the Valley's wide swaths of agriculture or open space let rain water seep into the soil and replenish the aquifer. Now there's more pavement than bare soil.

``A lot of this water just hits the storm drain and heads to the ocean, never to be seen again,'' said Mark Macowski, assistant watermaster for the San Fernando Valley. ``We need to catch what we can and use it wisely.''

The Sun Valley project will only replace about 2 percent of the total groundwater extracted from the San Fernando Valley basin each year.

It's a start, Macowski said. ``We view the Sun Valley project as a microcosm of what we'd like to see in the entire San Fernando Valley.''

But Sun Valley residents are more concerned about fixing the flooding problems in their neighborhood first.

After a year without rain, residents were inundated two weeks ago during the season's first storm. Once again, Tujunga Avenue was like a river and intersections were giant ponds.

``I forgot how bad it can get at Tuxford and San Fernando,'' said Burch, who wondered whether her car could plow through the knee-deep water. ``This project is just going to be very, very beneficial.''

IF YOU GO:

The Sun Valley Watershed Project will be discussed Wednesday night during an open house and town hall meeting at Sun Valley Middle School, 7330 Bakman Ave, where the public can learn more about the plans and offer comments. The open house will run from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and the meeting runs from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

CAPTION(S):

box, map

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IF YOU GO (see text)

Map:

SUN VALLEY WATERSHED PROJECT AREA

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist