They were installed in the foothills of Santa Barbara County in the wake of the deadly 2018 Montecito debris flow to try to prevent a similar disaster. But now, a system of ring nets is coming down, because of a lack of funding to maintain them.
The Thomas Fire stripped the mountain slopes above Montecito, and then a powerful storm triggered debris flows. 23 people died, and hundreds of homes were destroyed or damaged.
It led to a bold, grass roots effort funded by residents to prevent a similar disaster, by adding ring nets in some canyons to prevent debris flows.
But now, that effort is over because of a standoff over who would pay for it.
"You can't stop a debris flow. But, there are things you can do that can make the impact less," said Pat McElroy, the Executive Director of the non-profit group Project for Resilient Communities. It developed the ring net project.
"They key part of this whole thing was why isn't the government doing this? Our position at that point was that the county government got hit really hard...they had the Thomas Fire and the debris flow...and they didn't have the bandwidth at the time that this was going on. So, our message to our donors was that we needed to fill the gap," he said.
After doing research, they came up with the idea of installing a series of ring nets which would catch major debris like big boulders and tree limbs which could clog the creeks, while keeping them safely flowing.
"We examined and eliminated a whole bunch of things that people brought to us about how you could do debris flow mitigation." said McElroy. "We settled on this debris retention system of ring nets...they're used all over the world."
McElroy admits some people were skeptical. They contended what happened in 2017 and 2018 was an unusual combination of fire and a storm.
"There were people in the community talking that this isn't likely to happen for another 500 years...another thousand years. One of our donors paid for a study of the history of these kind of events in Southern Santa Barbara County. Lo and behold, we found out it happened 41 times in the last 200 years!" he said.
The non-profit raised the $6 million needed for the project, and went through a maze of government agencies to get emergency permits for the five year project. The permits expire this December.
"We had talked to the county from the very beginning about having them take over the management of this project. There was a reluctance there, and there is a reluctance which remains to this day. Finally, our discussions came down to it looked like we were going to get a (new) permit, but they weren't interested in the financial portion of the support. We just don't think the private sector is interested in doing this alone anymore," said McElroy.
It costs $50-60,000 a year to maintain the nets. There are two each in
San Ysidro, Cold Spring and Buena Vista canyons. But, the big costs come from clearing the nets when they do their jobs, and fill with debris. That can run into the millions, and that’s why the non-profit want the county to assume financial responsibility. McElroy says the nets did their job, and worked, especially in this January's big storm.
But, are they still needed? Most experts agree landscape is healed about five years after a major fire, and that regrowth will help prevent debris flows. We’re approaching six years.
The county has also done a number of flood control projects in the region during the last few years, including creation of a massive debris basin at Randall Road.
County officials say in a perfect world, if they had the money it would be great to keep the nets. But, they say with millions of dollars in damage from this year’s storms, and efforts to build other flood control projects, they can’t pick up they tab. They had a counterproposal.
"What we proposed was a public-private partnership," said Santa Barbara County Public Works Scott McGolpin. "We were focused on four nets. We wanted two of them to be in the Buena Vista watershed, because we don't have a basin (a flood control basin) in there yet. We do have one that will be constructed in 2025."
"Costs are a big thing for us, because we don't have these in our budget right now, so what we had proposed was a 50-50 split, until other public funding became available, and then we would pursue 100% of the cost," he said.
He said the nets had a great value, but notes they are seeing less debris now from more recent storms, which shows the watershed is healing. The county is struggling to pay for all the flood control, and storm repair projects it has now.
"We tried an experiment here," said McElroy. "We think we had a proof of concept that did work. The county has decided they don't want to move forward with this unless we are paying for it continually. But now, what are we going to do as a community for the inevitability of these type of events happening again. If the answer is nothing, then it's nothing. But we can't we can be surprised next time when something like this happens, and fatalities ensue, and great property damage ensues."
Work to remove the ring nets is already underway, and it’s expected they will be down by Tuesday. They’ll be put into storage for now, but McElroy says it’s doubtful they will every be used in Montecito again.
