Local lawmaker voices concerns ahead of expected El Nio winter

A local lawmaker is voicing concerns about our rivers ahead of what may be a wet winter. Assemblymember Luis Alejo said the Central Coast’s waterways need to be prepared in case an El Nio does happen.

That’s a concern Alejo has, as he talks with Gov. Jerry Brown about the management of our waterways.

This past March marked two decades since a winter storm devastated our area. In 1995, flooding through Monterey and Santa Cruz counties damaged more than 1,500 homes and 100 businesses. Just three years later, our area was hit with a series of El Nio winter storms which closed roads and caused landslides.

Right now, the river levels on the Pajaro River are pretty low, but according to a lot of scientists’ predictions, that could change in the winter time.

“Now that scientists have confirmed that they expect is a Godzilla El Nio storm this coming winter,” Alejo said, “It is incumbent upon us to prepare our communities to deal with that.”

He said he’s been in talks with the Governor’s office, pushing to expedite permits for maintenance on local rivers, particularly the Salinas and Pajaro Rivers. About a dozen miles on the Salinas River in south Monterey County were cleaned last year, but it’s not enough. Alejo said now is the time to do more.

“Many that have not been maintained or cleared in many years,” Alejo said. “So if we know that rains are coming and our rivers aren’t being cleaned, we can tell what’s going to happen. It’s going to be a repeat of what we saw in 1995 when the Salinas River flooded, the Pajaro River flooded causing millions and millions of dollars in damage.”

Watsonville resident Anthony Landecho remembers the 1995 flood. He says the water reached the stairs to his uncle’s house off of Riverside Drive. Since then, the banks of the Pajaro River have been shored up, and his family has also taken steps to keep their house safe.

“We put a pump under the house so if the water comes up too high it will automatically turn on,” Landecho said. “We don’t worry too much, they’ve done a lot of work up there.”

Alejo brought up another concern – A flood’s effect on sewage treatment facilities. Apparently in 1995, treatment plants and private septic systems along the Carmel, Salinas and Pajaro Rivers flooded and raw sewage got into the rivers.