This letter was sent to various LA County agencies to report the continuation of illegal grading after the School was received a formal a stop work notice on their illegal grading
July 26, 2004
LA County Public Works
L.A. County Regional Planning
Flood plain mapping Geffery Owu
As you may be aware, the Acton Agua Dulce School District on about 7-12-04 decided to illegally cut and fill in the designated flood way adjacent to Red Rover, just north of Escondido Canyon Road.
We posted on the Vanguardnews website photographs of the destruction and grading and we included a link to the County published FEMA flood map.
Mr. Geffery Owu of the Department of Public Works, Floodway Division, was notified on 7-15-04 and inspected the site on 7-19-04. He advised the District that it was clearly grading without a permit and he issued a "Stop Work Order" to the School District.
In inspecting the drainage around the school, it appears on the north side they have redirected the sheet flow with a concrete channel and dumped it, without any energy absorbing area, into the floodway.
An inspection of their road in the floodway, which does not have any drainage pipe, shows the road has been washed out and recently repaired.
The floodway the School District destroyed contained thousand year old juniper trees along with cactus and sagebrush. This area was a natural retention basin, with a soft bottom to allow small storms to percolate into the ground.
The District cut a swath across the floodplain and floodway. They excavated earth to a depth of at least 6 ft. and compacted it to an equal depth.
The environmental impact statement when the school was built clearly indicates the floodway and floodplain was to be left in a natural state because of written complaints from members of the community.
Further, the approved grading plan submitted to the County as part of the environmental process for Vasquez High School in 1999 shows this land to be left natural.
The School District did grading without notice to the community, without obtaining necessary permits, and without any necessary environmental work. When asked, they claimed they could do anything they wanted without County permits. The grading contractor should also be sited for working without a permit.
With even greater arrogance, we caught them grading again on Saturday July 22nd, after a "Stop Work Order" had been issued on July 19th. See the below declaration by Ron Bird.
Because of their arrogance and their refusal to follow your "Stop Work Order", we ask that the school be referred to the District Attorney's office for criminal prosecution.
We also request that they be required to restore the site and since they cannot restore the thousand-year-old trees, it would be best to require them to create a retention basin that will be landscaped to attempt to match the existing site as much as possible. The School District should pay for engineering studies to determine that the entire site’s runoff, in all conditions from a light mist to a 100 year storm, is equal or less than it was before the school was built.
Please provide me with copies of all correspondence and documents between the School District and any County agency concerning this issue after 1-1-03. I would prefer these to be in electronic form if available. Additionally, because of the overwhelming public harm that the School District has created, we request that a representative of the public be allowed to attend meetings between the County and the School District or in the alternative a summary of the meeting be published for public comment.
I would particularly like an immediate copy of the "Stop Work Order" for the grading.
I will let you know that I intend to make public as much of this information as possible, as the community has an absolute right to know why our School District has created such great ecological damage and how it intends to fix it.
Charles Brink
I, Ronald Bird, at 11:29 AM on July 24, 2004 observed grading occurring on Vasquez High School property located in Acton, CA. The County parcel number is: 3208 042 900. This grading occurred along the western edge of this property (near Red Rover Road) and was just south of the main entrance to the campus. This area is identified on the flood hazard map as a zone A flood zone.