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Supervisors approve $50,000 for Bonsall wetland mitigation

During the December 12 meeting of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, the supervisors voted 5-0 to establish $50,000 of appropriations into the Department of Public Works road fund to develop wetland mitigation for future planned capital improvement projects.

The supervisors’ 5-0 vote, which covered a total of 119 mid-year budget adjustments and also accepted the Fiscal Year 2006-07 first quarter report on the county’s operational plan, established appropriations for the design, planting, and project management of wetland creation on the site of the Department of Public Works’ Bonsall road station. The DPW road fund will be reimbursed as future capital projects which require off-site mitigation are developed.

The DPW road station site covers 12 acres and crosses State Route 76. “There’s a creek going through it that would be a perfect place for a wetland site,” said DPW deputy director Donna Turbyfill.

“We looked all over North County for mitigation land,” Turbyfill said. “Mitigation land, especially wetland creation, is getting to be much more rare.”

DPW determined that the Bonsall road station would not need approximately 1 1/2 acres of the site, which will be converted into wetlands. Approximately half of that will be used as mitigation for two bridge projects: the Valley Center Road North bridge and the replacement Black Canyon Road bridge over Santa Ysabel Creek (the existing Black Canyon Road bridge, erected in 1913 and designated as a historical structure, will be converted to pedestrian and other non-motorized use while the replacement bridge will be constructed on a new alignment roughly parallel to the existing bridge and will accommodate 100-year flood events as well as current seismic standards). The remaining 0.75 acres of new wetlands will be available for future mitigation.

Turbyfill noted that the wetlands creation on county-owned land will save approximately $1 million in acquisition costs. “We’re using our own land instead of buying some land,” she said.

The Bonsall road station is on the northwest side of State Route 76 while the wetlands will be created on the southeast side of the highway. The wetlands project is currently in the design phase, and the wetlands will be created outside the footprint of the planned Highway 76 widening. “Once we create wetland it’s permanent. We have to keep it forever,” Turbyfill said.

The mid-year budget adjustments also appropriated $2,000 of available Fallbrook-area Park Land Dedication Ordinance balance to cover Department of Parks and Recreation staff time for local park planning activities, transferred $9,761 of reserves in the Capra Way permanent road division zone and $40,600 of Tumble Creek permanent road division zone reserves to the Fiscal Year 2005-06 budget to cover unbudgeted expenses in the previous fiscal year, and transferred reserves and unbudgeted Federal Aviation Administration revenue to the 2005-06 budget to cover completed but unbudgeted airport capital projects including the taxi lane construction at Fallbrook Community Airpark.

 

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