Caution Needed On Contract Coming To Council Tonite: Saving L.A. River Bridge To Create Park Is Clever, But Guarantees Needed -- And Overdue -- That It Won't Trigger Costly, Mandatory "Flood Insurance" On Homeowners In LB And Beyond
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(June 9, 2015, 8:50 a.m.) -- Suppose Long Beach city officials lost their brains and decided to put a dam at the end of the L.A. River. That would swiftly trigger a bureaucratic action by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which de-certifies the channel as no longer able to protect the area from a "100-year" (0.01 annual chance) flood.
And that would trigger a bureaucratic action by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which runs the Congressionally mandated "National Flood Insurance Program," and can require all homeowners and business property owners whose property carries federally backed loans in an area with less than "100 year" flood protection to pay for costly annual "flood insurance" -- with premiums paid to FEMA.
This would trigger an outcry from homeowners and business property owners in Long Beach...and in multiple upriver cities that would also face the FEMA insurance mandate (from the river being "de-certified.) And it would drain likely a thousand dollars a year [very rough estimate/approximate] from many families and commercial property owners within that area every year, siphoning hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars from Long Beach.
So what happens when Councilmembers are asked -- tonight -- to approve a contract to design a project that would put TWO bridges at the end of the L.A. river (a new one for the new 710 plus the old one that would be used as an elevated park) where there's currently only one bridge? Of course that would create a new obstruction in the river that's not there now. So of course, the City of Long Beach has a duty to ensure that what its Mayor proposes won't lead to decertifying the current "100 year" capacity of the L.A. River.
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If the City doesn't have that assurance in writing -- not just optimism, hope, non-binding verbal statements and evasive lipservice -- then the City will be exposing homeowners and residents to a bureaucratic chain of events that could impose a costly annual FEMA flood insurance mandate on them...again.
The last time the Corps of Engineers decertified the L.A. River, FEMA imposed flood insurance that drained annual sums from parts of the 7th, 9th, and VERY large larts of the 5th and 4th Council districts for several years. That persisted until Cong. Horn liberated the area from the oppressive insurance mandate with an expedited project that raised the levees (and re-designed some bridge abutments) to restore 100 year capacity.
To go forward with the second bridge (park) project is in our opinion foolhardy and reckless without some certainty that it won't trigger this scenario. It's like Chernobyl's engineers running an experiment...in which the roof blew off.
Fortunately, Assistant City Manager Tom Modica (from his tenure handling legislative matters) is very well aware of FEMA issues. Newly hired Deputy City Manager Arturo Sanchez, with whom we spoke by telephone about this (as a potentially impacted homeowner) grasped the issue immediately. NOBODY who went through the previous FEMA proceeding wants to see it repeated. Long Beach, and its residents and businesses can't afford a reason not to live or do business in parts of Long Beach.
It's been almost exactly TWO YEARS since LBREPORT.com raised these issues in a constructive way. We called re-use of the current Shoemaker Bridge intriguing. We like the idea of re-using taxpayer infrastructure instead of tearing it down. [We wish that principle had been applied to retrofitting LB's City Hall, another issue.]
Here's what we wrote TWO YEARS AGO...and apparently, Long Beach still DOESN'T have written assurances at hand.
(June 3, 2013, 1:35 p.m.) -- A major problem with turning all or part of the soon-to-be former Shoemaker Bridge (connecting downtown Long Beach with the 710 freeway) into a park is that unlike High Line Park in NYC and adaptive resues of former railroad bridges elsewhere, it's not a railroad bridge over a street.
The Shoemaker Bridge is over the Los Angeles River which (for better or worse after concrete channelization decades ago) is now the key artery in the Corps of Engineers Los Angeles County Drainage Area flood control system.
Image source: CalTrans 710 EIR
The L.A. River, a federally declared floodway, handles the runoff from a vast area stretching from the San Fernando Valley through Los Angeles and southeast L.A. County. The flow reaches its maximum capacity in Long Beach...near the Shoemaker Bridge. Although we are among those who favor treating the L.A. River more as a natural asset, we respect its current real-world functions which are (1) to protect mainly Long Beach and southeast L.A. County residents from flooding; and (2) to protect homeowners and commercial property owners from predatory "flood insurance" and crippling building and development restrictions that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can impose when it decrees a flood control system doesn't provide greater than "100 year" (0.01 annual chance) flood protection.
KCET's award winning So Cal Connected documented FEMA's abusive flood insurance practices elsewhere (series titled: "Hung Out to Dry"). Long Beach and southeast L.A. County residents experienced it firsthand on the mid-1990s and into the early 2000s after the Corps of Engineers postulated, and FEMA decreed, that the L.A. River couldn't handle a "100 year" flow. As a result, for several years Long Beach homeowners and commercial property owners (some miles away from the L.A. River) had to pay costly "flood insurance" premiums each year (they're roughly twice as much now). This continued until Congress funded a Corps of Engineers project (not easily funded today) that raised the L.A. River levees to increase the channel's capacity.
Last year, Caltrans' I-710 draft EIR/EIS proposed putting new obstructions in the L.A. River channel (newly configured bridges, interchanges, etc.) and offset square footage lost with the new obstructions against square footage gained by removing items like the old Shoemaker Bridge. Based on those numbers, Caltrans (and a Caltrans hired hydrology firm) claimed there'd be no significant impact.
In response, the Corps of Engineers sent a sternly worded EIR response stating that Caltrans hasn't demonstrated to COE's satisfaction at this point that the proposed new obstructions won't significantly change or reduce the channel's flood conveyance capacity. Wrigley area homeowners who were impacted by the flood insurance requirements criticized the Caltrans EIR. So did LBREPORT.com editorially. Caltrans has cited a number of reasons for now reworking portions of its I-710 EIR/EIS.
The bottom line: the last thing that any thoughtful Long Beach resident should support is leaving parts of the old Shoemaker Bridge in the L.A. River alongside the new bridge. It will make matters worse. It will decrease the L.A. River square footage capacity below what has been proposed by Caltrans. It will make the 710's EIR/EIS mathematical assertions on reduced L.A. River square footage capacity no longer valid.
The Corps of Engineers has already indicated publicly that it does NOT accept Caltrans' assurances. Going even further than what Caltrans has proposed invites FEMA to trigger the costly flood insurance and building restrictions on taxpaying homeowners and businesses that the City of Long Beach and local elected officials at the County and federal level have sought to avoid.
We remain intrigued with the idea of adaptively reusing part of the old Shoemaker Bridge up to the river's edge and linking to Drake Park and elsewhere. However, the only way to ensure that this won't reduce the L.A. River's square footage capacity is to remove portions of the old bridge from the River. This won't prevent the park but it will prevent costly unintended consequences.
Vice Mayor Robert Garcia's agendizing memo is vague on this matter, but taxpaying Long Beach homeowners and commercial property owners deserve protection from, not potential exposure to, additional costs. The Corps of Engineers isn't willing simply to accept assurances of some paid consultant and neither should Long Beach taxpayers, especially on matters affecting life and property.
LBREPORT.com urges the Council to allow management to pursue the feasibility of a Shoemaker Bridge reuse project to the extent it doesn't leave portions of the soon-to-be-former Shoemaker bridge within the L.A. River channel.
There is NO indication in the agendizing memo for tonight's item that ANY of this has been done. Until it is done -- and the Council receives those assurances IN WRITING from the Corps of Engineers -- it should withhold approving any portion of the design work. This requires more than an "escape clause" for the city on a contract. It requires the City to ensure that the project it's proposing won't trigger major costs -- unintended consequences -- that homeowners and businesses will bear.
We are trying to be constructive in this. Going forward with a clever project should be cleverly and responsibly done, not recklessly or incautiously pursued.
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