Construction crews are working in Montecito creeks this week to install anchors for the permitted debris-catching steel nets, after months of permitting and fundraising efforts by the private nonprofit behind the project.
Pat McElroy, former Santa Barbara fire chief and executive director of The Partnership for Resilient Communities, said helicopters will drop off equipment and materials Thursday for installing net anchors in San Ysidro Creek, and Cold Spring Creek is next.
Cables and nets will be installed across the creeks next week, he said.
Santa Barbara County and other regulatory agencies in December gave the group emergency permits to install 11 nets in three Montecito creeks, but The Partnership for Resilient Communities’ fundraising pared the plan down to six nets, with an estimated cost of $5.1 million.
As of now, the group is $800,000 short of what is needed to install all six nets, McElroy said.
“We have enough to install four right now and are approaching enough for five, but we want to get at least all six,” he said Tuesday.
It will be more cost-effective to do all the installation work now, while the construction company is mobilized, he added.
The San Ysidro and Cold Spring creeks are first, then Buena Vista Creek, which, unlike the other canyons, has no county debris basin.
The nets are being put in after the above-average winter rains and as the fire-burned hillsides start to turn green.
It can take years for a burned watershed to recover, but Los Padres Forest Service officials think 60 percent of the vegetation above Montecito and Carpinteria will grow back by the fall, significantly reducing the risk of major debris flows.
The nonprofit group has been pushing for this project for almost a year, and raised more than $4 million so far, in addition to getting permits.
The group has applied to install more nets in Hot Springs and Romero creeks, on U.S. Forest Service land, McElroy said.
Future net projects will have to go through full permit approval, with California Environmental Quality Act review, instead of the emergency process used last year.
The Partnership held a gathering for supporters in the Montecito Upper Village in mid-March to thank donors, some who gave $20 and some who gave upwards of $200,000, said Alixe Mattingly, part of the group’s leadership team.
At that point, the group was at $4.1 million of its fundraising goal for the six nets, which were custom-ordered from the Swiss company GeoBrugg in early February.
“At some point, as private citizens, we’ve taken this as far as we can,” and will need governmental assistance with the project in the future, McElroy said.
“We’re in the process already for planning years two through five, but if it’s us that manages it or county that manages this, it’s yet to be determined,” he said.
The amount of debris-catching capacity the nets add is “a big boost to the county system,” he said, “and we’re doing it with private money, and that needs to be recognized.”
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
