Measure would boost
parks, water supply
Lack of funding for new reservoirs
draws fire
09:38 AM PDT on Monday, October
9, 2006
For years, Pete Staylor and other Inland cyclists have had to
haul their bikes to a spot over the Orange County line to hop on the Santa Ana
River's bike trail to the beach.
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Even though the river winds through major Inland cities, the
crest-to-coast trail still has gaps in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. A
measure on the November ballot would invest $45 million in bridging those gaps
and adding parks along the river.
Staylor often rides a 9-mile stretch of the trail through
Riverside, only to come up against a chain-link fence near the city's Van Buren
Bridge where he must turn around.
"It's the trail to nowhere right now," said Staylor, a member of
the Riverside Bicycle Club. "We're chomping at the bit to get this going."
Before that can happen, though, a majority of California voters
must approve Prop. 84, authorizing the sale of $5.4 billion in bonds to fund
flood control and water quality projects, and purchase new parkland and wildlife
habitat across the state.
In the two-county Inland region, bond money would help restore
the shrinking Salton Sea in the Riverside County desert, buy habitat and open
space in the Coachella Valley, remove invasive plants along the Santa Ana River,
and treat groundwater pollution.
Eleven environmental groups, including the California Audubon
Society and the Nature Conservancy, wrote the bond and collected enough
signatures to qualify it for the ballot.
"There's supposed to be some huge amount of growth in the next
20 years. You can see it by driving the freeways," said Drew Feldmann, president
of the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society. "There's a need to preserve the
wildlands or semi-wildlands that remain, to preserve wildlife diversity and
habitat."
A Critic's View
Bill Leonard, the measure's most vocal opponent, said the
initiative hasn't undergone the Legislature's scrutiny like other bonds on the
November ballot.
"I don't know who made up the list of projects, and I don't know
what they left out," said Leonard, an elected member of the California State
Board of Equalization and a former state lawmaker who represented the San
Bernardino area.
The $45 million tagged for the Santa Ana River Trail divides $30
million equally among Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, according
to the initiative's language.
But, Leonard said, it doesn't specify what would happen with the
remaining$15 million.
Fiona Hutton, an initiative spokeswoman, said that money is up
for grabs to the three counties, which can submit grant applications to the
California Coastal Conservancy.
The state agency will award money based on the grants' merits.
Leonard also criticized the measure for not doing enough to
boost the water supply because it has no funding for new reservoirs.
Most major Inland water agencies, however, have endorsed the
proposition because it increases the water supply by cleaning up polluted water
and removing salts from otherwise unusable groundwater, said Redlands-based
water consultant Daniel Cozad.
The region, he said, did just that with previous water bonds,
creating additional water to serve 600,000 families in the watershed that
stretches over parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties.
Besides the Santa Ana River Trail, Prop. 84 would fund trails
along other neglected rivers, including the Los Angeles River, where a
restoration plan along the city's 32-mile stretch is being developed.
Decades ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local
authorities lined rivers such as the LA River in Southern California and the
West with concrete for flood-control purposes.
These days, many community activists want to return rivers to
their natural states so they become landmark features lined with greenbelts.
"We don't have enough parks in Southern California for the
people," said D.P. Myers, of the Wildlands Conservancy, in Oak Glen, a river
supporter. "Why not create a natural linear park? Instead of turning our backs
to the river, let's embrace it and build upon it."
A recent poll conducted by the nonpartisan Field Institute
showed that 50 percent of likely voters surveyed supported Prop. 84.
Thirty percent opposed and 20 percent were undecided.
The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 6 percentage
points.
Building Momentum
Even if the bond measure doesn't pass, improving the Santa Ana
River trail has gained momentum with an agreement finalized in July that created
advisory panels with members from the three counties to manage the river as a
regional recreational amenity.
And the river's main benefactor, the Wildlands Conservancy,
which has pumped more than $50 million into trail projects, has volunteered to
help guide efforts to complete it.
The nonprofit, established in 1995, has purchased thousands of
acres for conservation.
The conservancy has given most cities along the river $5,000 to
develop plans for their part of the trail, much like Riverside has already done.
Once they are completed, the conservancy has offered to develop
a master plan based on those cities' visions.
Myers said the river has long been neglected for funding and
supporters lost a legislative bid a few years ago to designate the river a state
conservancy, which typically attracts heavy bond funding.
There are only nine such conservancies in the state, including
the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy.
"This is a huge win for us," Myers said of Prop. 84. Myers'
group is helping to fund TV advertisements supporting the measure, he said.
If the bond passes, San Bernardino County likely would use its
portion to help construct the trail between Redlands and Highland, build Colton
Regional Park along the river, and add rest stops and other access points along
the trail, said Maureen Snelgrove, the county's deputy director of regional
parks.
Snelgrove said the bond measure creates other statewide pots
into which cities and counties could tap. Prop. 84, she said, includes $400
million for new local and regional parks and $72 million for river parkways.
In Riverside County, construction is expected to start in
January on a 4.5-mile segment of the trail on the western edge of Riverside
through the Hidden Valley Wildlife Area.
The roughly $6 million project, funded by the state, county and
Wildlands Conservancy, is expected to be completed by May.
It will have separate trails for bicyclists and equestrians,
and, when a one-third-mile section to the east is completed by a Riverside
developer, the fence at the Van Buren Bridge that Staylor and his comrades face
will be taken away
Riverside County's portion of Prop. 84 funds would likely help
bridge gaps through Norco and Corona, said Paul Frandsen, Riverside County's
parks chief.
What remains a "pinch point," as observers call it, is building
the trail through Prado Dam, a river barricade near Corona that's now being
raised and sits at the busy intersection of the 91 and 71 highways.
The Wildlands Conservancy gave the Army Corps of Engineers $1
million to incorporate the trail into the federal agency's dam-improvement
plans, Frandsen said. For instance, he said, the bike trail could travel over
new dykes the Corps is building as flood protection.
As it stands, starting lines for the annual "Smog to Surf" ride
from Riverside to Huntington Beach, changed this year to the more politically
correct "Riverside to Surfside," begin Saturday in Riverside and Corona but
riders won't be able to go along the river until they hit Orange County past the
Prado Dam.
It's been a sore point for the past 20 years of the event.
A completed trail, Staylor said, would not only connect
Riverside to the beach but to many of the Inland region's major cities.
"It's going to open up so much," he said.
Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com
BSRanch Perspective:
Now there is talk of finishing the Bike Trail, Back in 1990,
1991, a very good friend of mine & I Went to Yorba Linda Park to enter the
Bike Trail to go to the Beach, that was 21 miles both ways, We always talked
about how great it was if they opened the trail the whole way through we would
not have to fight the traffic on a long hard ride home, because we would
have bypassed it on the bike trail. I hope that they do it and get it completed.
so the Bicyclists have a place to ride!!
BSRanch
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