Aliso Creek study on tap

A 7-mile stretch of Aliso Creek is under study by the Army Corps of Engineers and the County of Orange for ways to improve wildlife habitat and water quality.

The study is separate from the SUPER (Stabilization, Utility Protection and Environmental Restoration) Project, a $45 million federal effort to tame the Aliso watercourse, which is subject to flooding and erosion.

The study is a spinoff of an overall Orange County Watershed study of 2002 — which preceded the SUPER Project — and will evaluate the creek from Pacific Park in Aliso Viejo to the ocean, including 1,000 feet of the Wood Canyon tributary to Aliso Creek, said John Vivante, lead planner with the Corps for the watershed project.

The SUPER Project includes a creek-water treatment plant that, if approved, would be built near the mouth of the creek at Aliso Beach, said MaryAnne Skorpanich, director of the Orange County Watershed agency.

The $11 million treatment plant would target bacteria that collects at the mouth of the creek, and is still in “study phase,” Skorpanich said.

“The SUPER Project is one of the alternatives to be analyzed and compared,” Skorpanich said. “We are weighing competing goals of habitat versus people.”

Skorpanich said grant funds have been obtained to partially meet the matching requirements for the SUPER Project, but that project, which is preferred by various parties with interests in the creek, is far from being approved.

“The Watershed Management Plan was completed in 2002 identifying potential projects and best management practices that could be implemented throughout the watershed to address a variety of concerns raised by stakeholders,” Skorpanich said. “The Aliso Creek Ecosystem Restoration Project was one potential project identified. The Corps of Engineers with Orange County is now conducting a study (Aliso Creek Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study) on what project could best restore Aliso Creek within the boundaries of Aliso Woods Canyon Wilderness Park. The study will proceed to identify project alternatives and then weigh their relative merits and costs. The county and a number of stakeholders prefer a project alternative we call the SUPER Project that combines ecosystem restoration with bacteria treatment upstream of Aliso Beach.”

To date, there have been federal appropriations to fund the Aliso Creek Ecosystem Restoration feasibility study four of the past six years, Skorpanich said.