Sen. Alex Padilla on Friday announced more than $32 million in federal funding for seven projects in San Diego County.
The largest portion of those funds, $26 million, will go to the San Luis Rey River project in Oceanside to repair levees and remove sediment and sand from the river, intended to lessen flood risks.
Sen. Adam Schiff, another of California’s two Senate members, both Democrats, helped procure the funds.
“Oceanside residents depend on the San Luis Rey River Project to protect their homes, schools and businesses from devastating flooding,” said Padilla, who was in San Diego on Friday. “After years of project delays, this surge in bipartisan federal funding Senator Schiff and I fought for will make critical levee repairs and remove dangerous sediment buildup to mitigate flood risk for vulnerable Oceanside communities.”
The San Luis Rey River Project Flood Risk Reduction Project was originally approved in 1970 to provide a “250-year level of flood protection,” a statement from the senator read.
Decades of construction delays ballooned costs, leaving the community’s flood protection at an estimated 70-year level, far short of the protection initially envisioned for the project.
“For decades, the Oceanside community has been at the mercy of aging flood protection systems that threaten residents, the local economy, and infrastructure in the region,” Schiff said. “These federal dollars will underwrite work toward mitigating those flood risks.”
The $26 million will go toward geotechnical investigations, levee repairs and sediment removal, Padilla’s office said.
Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez called it a “long overdue investment” that also will allow for “sand replenishment on our starved beaches and restore reliable flood and fire protection for our residents and businesses.”
Padilla the funding will “support transformative projects across the region that will deliver lasting improvements for San Diego County residents.” The other projects include:
- Pediatric mental health, $2 million, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, to embed mental health clinicians in pediatric primary care practices;
- SPRINTER platform and track enhancement, $1.2 million for North County Transit – San Diego Railroad;
- San Diego homeless shelter, $1 million to the city of San Diego for homeless shelter construction, programs and funding;
- Water line replacement. Fallbrook Public Utility District, $1 million to help replace an 80-year-old pipeline in downtown Fallbrook;
- Opportunities for community college students, $655,000 to support workforce training, child care and basic needs support at Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges, and
- STEM education programming, $236,000 for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers to provide monthly STEM experiences in four classrooms, serving up to 2,000 students per year.
