Ring Nets Removal Response

Regarding the “Ring Nets” installed in the canyons above Montecito in response to the disastrous mudslide of January 9, 2018:

As the Executive Director of an environmental organization in Santa Barbara, I joined the Board of The Project for Resilient Communities (TPRC) to watch the proceedings from an environmental point of view. The Ring Nets were installed as a response to a major disaster, and to stop a future one. Expert biologists were hired to ensure the wildlife could get under and around the nets. The TPRC raised millions to ensure science, geology, and environment were in place. 

“They didn’t work,” is an idiotic phrase when there are photos and video documentation of a net in San Ysidro Canyon filled with the remnants of a debris flow in January – this year. For those who have forgotten the floods of January 2018, a look at this New York Times article may refresh the memory: 

www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/us/montecito-mudslide-2018-california-storms.html

The failure of the County to ensure the maintenance of these nets is foolhardy. We on the Santa Barbara south coast have not experienced the El Niño to come, the floods to come, the forest fires to come, the future to come. Climate change IS happening, and we are seeing, as the old song says, “…the mountains crumbling to the sea.” 

Good environmental work is to ensure our day-to-day activities are not harming the environment, and our work is to improve those processes the best we can. Disasters that kill people are another thing entirely. That the County didn’t pick up where a group of dedicated people raised millions to protect the community from future Climate Change disasters is unbelievable.

Hillary Hauser, Executive Director
Heal the Ocean

The Road Ahead 

As I watch the stretch of highway between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara constantly being torn up to create new swaths of concrete, I wonder if anyone ever looked into the studies that have shown that “adding lanes only increases vehicle dependence while doing little to reduce congestion.” (See Uranga, Rachel. “Caltrans Executive Questions Freeway Expansion.” Los Angeles Times; October 22, 2023)

That LA Times article chronicled how a Caltrans executive was demoted after she complained about unnecessary freeway expansion and how Caltrans “bypasses and bends the [environmental analysis] rules when it suits them to build bigger and faster projects.” Steven Wheeler, a professor of urban planning and design at UC Davis stated, “Caltrans has a long history of plowing ahead and widening roads without regard to various better policy alternatives.” He stated one of the ways Caltrans accomplishes that is “by breaking projects up into smaller pieces, which makes it easier to get it approved and avoid public scrutiny.”

How many of our beautiful older trees have been ripped up (typically at night so there’s less public outcry) for additional lanes? One of the sections of the Montecito widening is tearing up over 160 of our beautiful oak trees in addition to all the vegetation in the median dividers. While other communities are adding trees to combat climate change, we’re watching Caltrans rip up our trees, some of whom are over one hundred years old. 

Were the two roundabouts at Olive Mill and San Ysidro really necessary? Beautiful oaks, sycamore, and other ancient trees were pulled out and discarded. Why? Was there some study that showed an increase in traffic or accidents at those intersections that necessitated the destruction of both intersections. 

When Caltrans first proposed the Montecito widening project, the increased freeway sounds were to be mitigated by sound walls. Just before construction was started, Caltrans “just discovered that sound walls might cause flooding in the event of a ‘100-year flood.’” Instead of sound walls, Montecito got chain link fences. C’mon, does anyone really believe this was a revelation to Caltrans or that they couldn’t build the sound walls in a way that would minimize potential flooding?

Large expanses of concrete, center dividers with no greenery, 100-year-old trees ripped up and replaced with chain link fences. Is this what the citizens of Santa Barbara and Montecito really wanted for their community?

It may be too late to do anything about this recent “concrete assault” on our community but perhaps the City Council might look a little deeper into the real effects of Caltrans’ future plans to “benefit” the city. What kind of destruction will occur when Caltrans builds the new Cabrillo 101 Freeway Southbound entrance, which was only necessitated by their removal over five years ago of a perfectly functioning onramp?

Very truly yours, 
Lawrence P. Grassini

Netting It Out 

Our local government has just thrown away six million dollars of our money, and it’s time to call them accountable. The Project for Resilient Communities (TPRC), ostensibly a “Public-Private Partnership” raised, entirely from “Private Sector” contributions, 100 percent of these funds to install six steel rings nets to be installed in the drainages above Montecito. This initiative was in direct response to the catastrophic devastation experienced following the fire and debris flow during the winter of 2017-2018, when we realized that our County Flood Control had neglected their responsibility to maintain the woefully inadequate debris basins under their supervision. I don’t need to remind you of the magnitude of loss in both human life as well as property and commerce, but while Nero fiddled, the citizens of our community took action. 

On January 9th of this year, EXACTLY five years after the debris flow, we experienced another such event. Fortunately, one of the nets was able to capture much of the debris, and proved beyond reasonable doubt that these nets are effective to slow momentum and volume. True to their promise, TPRC embarked upon the task of quantifying the remediation to which they have been contractually obligated, and planning for the clean-out as soon as the environmental conditions allowed for the removal and re-distribution of the accumulated material, consistent with sound environmental practices. This work was completed in October, ahead of the rapidly approaching date set by the governmental agencies for the five-year expiration of the initial net permit. These nets have a useful life of 50 years, and due to bureaucratic inaction, the County delayed their decision to extend the permits, and take over future responsibility for routine maintenance of the net system.

After five years of managing every aspect – from installation to ongoing management, and ultimately debris removal – TPRC always wanted to DONATE this six-million-dollar infrastructure system to County Flood Control’s system. That should have been responsible from the outset for these costs. Despite hundreds of letters from you in support of the nets to our elected First District Supervisor Das Williams, along with County Flood Control Chief Scott McGolpin, both of these officials FAILED TO ACT in a timely manner.

With the deadline for approving governmentally mandated permit extensions or removal rapidly approaching, and with professional crews already on-site for the remediation of debris, TPRC tried one last time to obtain their commitment. Unfortunately, neither Das nor Scott would budge from their position that this was going to be the private citizens’ ongoing financial responsibility.

What an absolute failure by our government to say, “Thank you for your six million dollars, we’ve got it from here.” Instead, they allowed our innovative nets system, as recognized by FEMA and experts worldwide, to be dismantled. When the next flood disaster strikes, we know who should be held responsible. 

The existential question is: Should the private sector bear the responsibility for community safety and property protection or the Public Sector?

Mark Mattingly