Five years to the day of the 2018 debris flow, Montecito was spared from another disaster, similar to the one that caused the death of 23 people along with untold destruction and misery.
But luck had nothing to do with it, for the Santa Barbara County Flood Control district built the recently completed Randall Road Debris Basin, which held back 50,000 cubic yards of material that would have otherwise barreled down the hill. Moreover, the county will continuously empty all the debris basins lest disaster strikes again in the next big storm.
Whereas, this is all good news, the rest of the county is not so “lucky.” Guadalupe and many agricultural fields took a pounding in the recent storm because there is no levee or debris basin protecting these areas. Moreover, we are dangerously close to the circumstances in 1969 when the Lompoc Valley, including Vandenberg Air Force Base, was devastated by a flood.
The circumstances that led to 120,000 cubic feet of water flooding the Lompoc Valley in 1969? Lake Cachuma spilled, which in itself is a problem downstream, while the watershed was already saturated by a series of storms. Then a big storm hit on top of all that!
With Cachuma now full at the beginning of what is our normal rainy season, we could definitely be poised for a repeat of 1969. Unfortunately for Lompoc, there are three extenuating circumstances that could make things inordinately worse than they were in 1969.
First, the Santa Ynez River, as it flows through Lompoc no longer has the same carrying capacity as it did back in 1969. This is because the Lompoc sewage plant dumps its effluent into the river, which acts like a million-gallon flow of liquid Miracle Grow on the willows in the river. This would not be a problem except for the lack of maintenance in the river due to the fact that the willows are protected habitat, despite the fact they will be tomorrow’s flood debris!
Because of this unmanaged unnatural growth, the water-carrying capacity of the river is now down to 15,500 cubic feet a second, which is barely one-fourth of the original carrying capacity of 60,000 cfs back in 1969. Considering the flood of 1969 was 120,000 cfs, the vastly diminished capacity makes for an even larger looming disaster.
Second, the population and physical footprint of Lompoc has virtually doubled since 1969, meaning much more development in the city could be jeopardized should the river overflow its banks.
Specifically, with the proposal that water is released from Lake Cachuma at 10,000 cfs, that means the river could only handle another 5,500 cfs before flooding could occur. It is not hard to fathom that 5,500 cfs could flow from throughout the rest of the watershed including the city of Lompoc itself.
Third, back in the 1990s, when we were fighting this same war on the willows, a federal agency warned the city of Lompoc and Santa Barbara County that their failure to maintain the carrying capacity of the river could bring about a wholesale disaster on the city. How so?
The storm water system in Lompoc is designed to flow by way of gravity into the Santa Ynez River. However, the willows impede the flow to such a degree that they act like a dam and raise the height of the river. Accordingly, the agency warned the river water could reverse the flow of the water. The river could flow into Lompoc via the storm drain systems!
Staving off this disaster is not unprecedented. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in the early ’90s, led by Supervisor Mike Stoker — under threat of arrest, mind you — ordered bulldozers into the river to clear the willows just before the “Miracle March” deluge hit the valley, thereby avoiding certain disaster. Our current board of supervisors needs to do likewise before it is too late for the Lompoc Valley.
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
