A report presented at Wednesday’s Tidelands Management Committee meeting might have been informative to members of the audience — but it was not to Mayor Nancy Gardner, who told staff to come back in the future with ideas of reducing water runoff on Little Corona Beach.
“I already knew all this,” she said after the staff presentation. “This is not what I asked for. I want to get the water off the beach. I was hoping for some ideas of putting and end to this.”
Deputy Public Works Director Dave Webb gave a report that outlined the changes in Buck Gully from a historically dry creek to a current creek that sees as much as 19 million gallons of water flowing each month.
The increase in water flow has caused erosion, changed the flora and fauna of the Lower Buck Gully area and caused Little Corona to be split where the creek flows to the ocean, sometimes causing steep cuts in the sand.
Staff has been working to educate residents about over-irrigation, Webb said, and a tiered water rate system could be implemented that would charge more for customers who use the most water. He also discussed the Lower Buck Gully erosion project, which is in the final stages of revegetation. That project installed cages filled with rocks along Lower Buck Gully that slow water flow and protect canyon hillsides; read our stories here and here.
Gardner said the presentation was useful to members of the audience unfamiliar with the runoff situation but would like to see a report that addresses her concerns.
“We want to have a beach with lots of sand on it — not this,” she said.
In an email today, Gardner said that staff “will come back with some ideas of how to accomplish that and costs.” She did not say when she expected that report.
