It’s supposed to be done by Memorial Day, but there’s an expression in the military, “Hurry up and wait.”
The Laguna Canyon Channel Replacement Project is, after all, a county project and delays are inevitable because, well, dirty water happens.
However, the risk here is the Sawdust Festival, which opens on June 30. If that project is delayed, parking for the Sawdust is going to be a nightmare, and the artists will suffer.
So far, the county says the project will be done, but to the layman’s eye, the site looks like it’s a long way to completion. (We were going to say “disaster” but decided against it.)
By way of background, during a heavy storm in February 2019, more than 250 feet of the channel wall collapsed. The county put up a temporary fix, but now they are doing it right. Specifically, they are “replacing the rectangular concrete channel, reconfiguring small concrete pedestrian crossings, removing and replacing softscape and hardscape that may be damaged or removed in order to construct the Project, and removing trees within the Project limits that pose a risk to the channel.”
So they are redoing the whole thing.
Of course, the nearby businesses are having to grin and bear it – but they’re not grinning so much. As in any infrastructure project like this, there are frustrating, temporary impacts.
The irony is, even when the county finishes its work, the channel will not be truly fixed. It’s completely undersized for today’s 100-year floods that seem to occur every couple years.
The City of Laguna Beach acknowledges the shortcomings.
“This replacement project is to maintain the current flood protection and the original geometry will be maintained,” the city says on the project site. “Any channel enhancements or modifications are not feasible at this time as the channel is under sized. To upgrade this channel and convey 100-year flows, a secondary storm drain system is needed under Laguna Canyon Road in the future.”
So in the future, not at this time … hurry up and wait.
