Summer 2011, Volume 57, Number 3 - San Diego History Center

The Journal of San Diego History
Fig. 12. The San Diego River flood of February 18, 1980 at Fashion Valley Road. Photo by P.R. Pryde.
Hedgecock. 34 On the whole, Alternative V looked good to most San Diegans, at
least compared to what was being proposed previously. On April 17, 1973, the San
Diego City Council voted 7-0 to approve the concept of Alternative V. 35
But that small bit of euphoria was destined to be temporary. Alternative V
was not without its critics and, as noted above, would have involved two new
retention dams immediately below the existing El Capitan and San Vicente dams.
Some conservation groups and many individuals preferred an open space-green
belt concept in Mission Valley, while a few landowners were still sympathetic to
the concrete channel idea. A few years of discussions, planning, and additional
thinking ensued.
The death knell for the Corps’ proposal came in 1976 when the Corps itself
opined that, based on a much lower estimated hundred-year flood size in the valley
(25,000 cfs) plus the use of more realistic (higher) interest rates in its economic
calculations, none of its nine 1973 alternatives would have a positive benefitcost
ratio. That statement pretty much killed any chance of getting a funding
appropriation through Congress. 36
The city then began to seek ways to resolve the situation itself. It studied
concepts for the river’s floodplain that it could incorporate into the community
plans for Mission Valley, and that embodied the idea of a “soft-bottom” channel
(that is, with a bottom of soil and vegetation). Because some sections of the valley
were already so well developed that there was little room for any kind of a channel
left (for example, the Fashion Valley area near the Town and Country complex),
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