Frustration mounts for Bolsa Knolls residents dealing with regular flooding.

Celia Jiménez here, thinking about the recent rain and wondering if Bolsa Knolls residents will have a difficult rainy season this year. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked with county officials, experts and residents about flooding that the neighborhood experiences every year, impacting the lives of Bolsa Knolls residents, especially those who live near Little Bear Creek. You can read about it in this week’s cover story.

Residents have specific routines during the rainy season, including having rain gear ready to go and sandbags filled or strategically placed around their properties. They also set alarms to monitor water levels and plan to pump water away or let it flow freely through their properties to prevent further damage. 

Francisco Maciel, who has lived near the creek since 1997, recently invested more than $70,000 in a concrete wall.

Lisa Wise shared that her home, instead of being a safe space, feels like a constraint. “We’re just held hostage by the rains now, because [the County of Monterey] is not taking care of their property,” she told me. 

Residents said the county used to clean the creek and remove trees and sediment; however, Randall Ishii, director of the Monterey County Department of Public Works, said there were no records on file for creek maintenance. The county maintains drainage, including ditches and culverts on county property. 

One common emotion expressed by the parties involved was frustration, from dealing with multiple floods every year to discovering the complex process each property owner has to deal with to maintain their portion of the creek. This includes filing multiple forms with local, state and federal agencies and following state and federal regulations, as the creek’s habitat could be home to the California tiger salamander, an endangered species. 

“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,” Supervisor Glenn Church told me. 

The county is currently conducting a study that should be ready by the end of the year to determine how property owners can address the issue and mitigate flooding. Hopefully, this would provide alternatives that would improve the permitting process and the quality of life of the people who live along the creek.

It can’t come soon enough—as this story was getting ready to go to print, Maciel texted me on a rainy night last Sunday at 2:04am to say the cycle had begun again: “We are flooding.”