Delay in dam remediation project angers neighbors

Several tenants from the Lakeside Trailer Park stormed into City Hall on Sept. 30 wanting to know the answer to one very important question.

They left disappointed.

“The bottom line is, we want to know when we have to move out,” tenant Mae Murch, 70, said. “I finally got up and talked and said, ‘What you are doing is waiting for all of us to die. That way you won’t have to pay us.’ ”

Murch is among a few dozen tenants living in the trailer park that sits just below the lake’s dam.

The meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was scheduled to discuss the progress of the Success Dam Remediation Project. Present was Col. Thomas Chapman, commander of the Sacramento District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Residents of the trailer park and other affected property owners said they are getting tired of the constant delays in the project. And they were not happy that officials have announced yet another delay.

“It’s always the same thing over and over. I am so tired of it. They never do anything,” tenant Leslie Keel said. “Three years ago they came through and said they were going to do something about the dam. I can’t understand why they let these people get away with it.”

Murch said her husband Bernie was still living when the project was first announced.

“People started moving out and selling their stuff,” Murch said. “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere until they pay. But I don’t think it will happen. I will still be here in 10 years, waiting for them to finish.”

Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers said they have until the end of October to decide on which of two selections they shall use for the project.

“Once we make a decision on which fix to employ, we will send it to headquarters. We only slid a couple of months from our last report,” Success Lake area manager Calvin Foster said. “We had said it would be January or February, but now we’re looking at summer. The bottom line is that we are going through the process. The colonel definitely told the public that we are finalizing information but it looks very positive that we will go with the downstream embankment, and acquisition of property may begin as early as next summer.”

The controversy over delays varies. City officials say the project is more than just a few months behind schedule.

“We were supposed to have been in construction in 2010, now it looks like it will be 2011,” Porterville Mayor Cameron Hamilton said. “We’re at least three years behind.”

Originally, Chapman had said negotiations and appraisals for property acquisitions would occur at the end of 2008, said Baldo Rodriguez, Porterville public works director.

“That has slipped. The earliest that will be done will be in August 2009,” Rodriguez said. “The second point is that there are two alternatives left and a selection must be made by the end of this month.”

Both options will cost approximately $500 million.

“Alternative No. 2 is preferred by the Corps of Engineers — building a whole new dam immediately in adjacent on the downstream side,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez offered the following time line for the project:

-- End of October 2008: Decide on one of two selections for the project.

-- Sometime in November: Stakeholders, the city and the irrigation district will be invited to listen to experts and discuss the merits and alternatives of the project.

-- August 2009: Negotiate with property owners.

-- February 2011: Complete all real estate transactions.

-- August 2011: Begin advertising for bids.

“From then — August 2011 — we are looking at three years,” Rodriguez said. “It is taking longer than what we had hoped but it’s a very complicated and expensive project and the Corps of Engineers have promised us that this is a priority project and they will pursue it in that manner.”

-- Contact Esther Avila at 784-5000, Ext. 1047 or eavila@portervillerecorder.com.