24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY NOVEMBER 20-26, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com Hidalgo adds that there are resources available for ag property owners to help mitigate the impacts on neighbors. “There’s basically free money, if you want to call it that, for them to either get cover crop seed or to plan around putting a sediment basin on their farm,” he says. Robins says one challenge is growers with short-term leases are less likely than long-term property owners to invest in prevention as a priority. Maciel observes the change as well. “When all these farmers started planting, instead of having cattle, we started getting more floods,” he notes. Besides that, climate change may continue to be a contributing factor. “We’re starting to get some of these more flashy storm events, where they’re big and intense,” Robins says. “And that’s just part of climate change.” In Salinas, Santa Rita Creek’s manmade concrete channel was built in the 1970s. With little sign of a natural riparian area or wildlife habitat to protect, it has less restrictive regulations. Every fall, city officials remove sediment, spending between $20,000 to $31,000. They also perform monthly inspections for weed abatement and trash. On the Little Bear Creek side it seems obvious to some residents they should do the same thing. But it’s complicated. The creek has been identified as habitat for the protected California tiger salamander. “You just can’t go and send out our crew to go clean this, because there’s state and there’s federal regulations, environmental regulations, that are extremely strict,” Church says. Property owners would need permits from the County of Monterey, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Each agency has its own application process, fees, requirements and backlogs. Timing to issue a permit could vary in length as well. “We’ve had projects where the permits have taken over a year. It’s been very frustrating,” Robins says. He adds that having an advocate helping navigate the system is helpful to reduce the timeline. Robins’ agency, the RCD, helps property owners with this process. With one client, an agricultural property owner, they spent nearly two years getting all the elements of the project fine-tuned before it was reviewed by the county. For that client, whose project was about a mile in length, Robins estimates the cost was about $150,000, including engineering fees. “You can imagine, these costs are a barrier for people to do this work,” Robins says. During winter, property owners can apply for emergency permits to fasttrack the process. “The problem is, you have to wait for the emergency to happen. So if you’re trying to do preventative work it takes a lot of time,” Robins adds. “Environmental protections have gotten more strict, and the job of the Resource Conservation District is to help people deal with those regulations so they can get projects done. But it does slow things down.” Maciel and Wise haven’t applied for permits because what’s behind their fences—the floodplain and creek—are owned by the county and other property owners. Church says he’s been aware of the issues in Bolsa Knolls since he took office in 2023 and he hopes to solve it. In the three years since, his district has experienced urgent issues like flooding in Pajaro and a fire at a battery energy storage facility in Moss Landing. Still, Church says addressing the issue along the creek has been more challenging because of the different layers and agencies involved. Many of the drainage ditches are on private property and there aren’t established drainage easements in place. “This is the most complex and difficult issue that I have encountered as a supervisor and trying to get it to move forward,” Church notes. Wise says Church told them the issue at Bolsa Knolls would be addressed after the Pajaro levee breached in 2023, displacing thousands of people, damaging infrastructure and damaging crops and ag lands. Then the catastrophic battery fire happened in Moss Landing in 2025, and once again residents feel ignored. “I just feel like we’re the ugly stepchildren, like we’ll get to you whenever we get to you,” Wise says. Church says he has not forgotten. “I wish it was just as easy as just sending in a crew and cleaning it up, because the fact is, there’s folks there and every winter they’re suffering, their homes and their property are being damaged, and their lives are being disrupted,” he says. “It’s just not right.” Little Bear Creek is much smaller than the Salinas River, but leaders like Church and Ishii are looking to the Salinas as a model that might be useful. The river faced some similar challenges with many different property owners, persistent flood issues and regulatory protections making it difficult to remove vegetation from the streambed that could block flow, creating a dam-like effect during storms and contributing to flooding. The Salinas River Stream Maintenance Program brings various stakeholders together in one action plan over 92 river miles. (After a successful demonstration project on two small stretches of river starting in 2014, the program expanded in 2016 and has been operating ever since.) Property owners can apply to RCD as a centralized agency for permits to clear plants, like invasive Arundo donax (a tall perennial grass that favors riparian areas), or to remove sediment. Participation is voluntary and the program is funded by members, who also apply for grants. Permitting for projects is based on topography and vegetation—property owners cannot just tear out any plants they want to. Ishii and Church say one way to streamline the process for Santa Rita/ Little Bear Creek would be to organize a similar collaborative effort, instead of each property owner working on their own, and also taking into account factors like conservation. “A process like that would likely need to be replicated for this Little Bear Creek/Santa Rita Creek, due to its length and due all the different properties it runs through,” Ishii says. In February of 2024, Church requested the County conduct a study on Little Bear Creek. “It is imperative that all property owners along Little Bear Creek can perform maintenance in a timely, legal manner,” his referral stated. Denise Duffy & Associates, an environmental consultant based in Monterey, is conducting a drainage study for the County of Monterey for $200,000. It was originally expected by summer 2025, and now county officials hope it’s ready by the end of the year. Whatever the study shows, it will likely suggest that more entities play a role in the impacts on Bolsa Knolls than just the residents of the neighborhood. How to manage that in a way that benefits the residents (and also protects the creek) is the challenge. For now, Bolsa Knolls residents including Maciel and Wise are bracing for another flood season. At 2:04am on Sunday morning, Nov. 16, during a heavy rainfall, Maciel texts to say the cycle has started again: “We are flooding.” Culverts on Little Bear Creek behind Paul Avenue in Bolsa Knolls were full of sediment on Oct. 9, 2025, a few days before the first rain of the season on Oct. 13. “When all these farmers started planting, we started getting more floods.” CELIA JIMÉNEZ DANIEL DREIFUSS Bolsa Knolls resident Raul Quineil clears debris to help the water drain after a flood in 2023.
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