Copter Hauls Steel Ring Nets Away from Montecito Watersheds

Earlier this week, the six protective steel mesh nets installed across three Montecito watersheds in the wake of the deadly January 9 debris flow five years ago were uninstalled and hauled away by helicopter. The private nonprofit organization Partnership for Resilient Communities, which formed after the disaster, had paid $5 million for those nets. But recently it failed to reach an agreement with county Public Works officials over how to share the costs of cleaning the debris — rocks, boulders, sand, tree trunks, etc. — that the nets captured between November 15 and May 1, this year’s official rainy season. November 15 was the effective deadline for removing the nets from the backcountry. 

What those costs might be is a matter of considerable speculation and apprehension on both sides. With an El Niño predicted this upcoming rainy season, there’s a 50 percent chance of significantly heavier-than-usual downpours. Typically, such rains are accompanied by heavier down-channel flows of boulders and debris. The cleanup costs could range from $1.2 million for one net to as much as $7.2 million if all six nets filled, according to an estimate by Public Works Director Scott McGolpin. “The question I always ask myself is, ‘Where’s the money?’ ” McGolpin said. “We don’t have it.”

McGolpin said he offered to take partial responsibility for cleanup costs for four of the six steel nets, splitting it 50-50 up to $2.5 million. Past that, he said, it would fall on the Partnership committee to absorb additional expenses. 

“That’s just not a sustainable risk,” stated Pat McElroy, chief spokesperson for the Partnership committee and former fire chief for the City of Santa Barbara. “Our ability to raise $4-5 million from private sources is not what it was in 2018.” With the prospect of a very wet winter, McElroy worries that heavy flows down creek channels into the nets would incur high costs. If the federal government does not declare it a national emergency, he said, that scenario would render the committee ineligible for federal reimbursements. “To take on that level of risk would be incredibly irresponsible,” he said.

McElroy and the committee had hoped that county government would assume responsibility for the steel net project as a hedge against the death and destruction likely to be visited upon Montecito as climate change brings about flashier, more violent rain storms.

But McGolpin and the county put their time and money into the construction of a new debris basin on Randall Road — which was filled halfway in January’s floods. The county has another debris basin on the drawing boards. This Tuesday, the supervisors uneasily gave McGolpin the green light to spend $25 million in general fund revenues on road repairs caused by those floods with the understanding that federal emergency dollars would be arriving in two to four years to backfill that loss. Among some supervisors, there was talk of not fixing some roads — the more isolated ones — and of recalibrating public expectations when it comes to road quality. 

On both sides, there’s no shortage of raw feelings. “Let’s just say Public Works has never been a fan of this project,” McElroy said. McGolpin, in turn, accused the Partnership of “flip-flopping,” having initially promised never to ask the county for assistance when it came to operating or maintaining the nets once installed. 

On the fourth floor of the county administration building, the supervisors’ phones have been ringing off the hook. Many environmental groups — who did not oppose the steel nets when they were first proposed — are now questioning the nets’ efficacy. For supporters of the nets, this is infuriating. “The deaths of 23 community members are too high a cost not to do anything,” wrote geomorphologist Larry Gurrola, who worked for the committee on the project. “How many fatalities are an acceptable loss in debris-flow events? Are any deaths acceptable? Do we do nothing?” 

The helicopters may have taken the steel nets away, but the bad blood triggered by this debate is far from resolved.