Despite the wishful thinking of City Officials or the lack of caring in the past on the part of the County of Riverside for those rural residents living downstream of the numerous tract homes built over the years a failure to move forward on required facilities has turned Lemon Street into a storm drain collecting waters from an area approximately 3/4 of a mile east of the freeway to well past Mission Trail/Palomar on into the Lake at Elsinore.
All the water that falls according to Riverside County Flood Control & Water Conservation District (RCFC&WCD) is supposed to be directed to an area located midway between Lemon Street and Waite Street.

 

This course was decided in March of 1982 with the approval of the SEDCO Master Drainage Plan. In July of 2014 a new map shows exactly the same facilities still being proposed. Where are they?

The waters east of the freeway are to be collected at the culverts coming under the freeway an by underground pipe directed to an open channel per this MASTER DRAINAGE PLAN approved in 1982.

 

Despite the engineers call-out for a direct connection what is currently present directs copious amounts of water onto Lemon Street.

From this collection box which is supposed to be the direct connection called Line E-1 water overflows across yards and onto Lemon Street.

The above basin has been recently cleaned of sediment.

Caltrans needs to clean this as this box is on their property and the City of Wildomar has not the money to complete this or any other job, like a  smaller line near Windsong Park on Prairie Road. (See previous articles)

This is a typical basin in the City of Wildomar, primarily because the County of Riverside never set up a financial mechanism to collect monies for the maintenance of  these basins. The small group of people who insisted Wildomar become a city either never gave this a second thought or just didn’t care.

 

Back to the direct connections, the above 66 inch line is one of two major connecting points. The other is an 84 inch line that doesn’t even have a box to slow things down.

Which results in a neighbor having to try and protect their property by any means possible.

In between these two large drains is another smaller drain that more than likely doesn’t work.

Let us cross under the freeway for a moment to look at a drainage feature connected to Lemon Street from the hills above.

The first picture is the collection basin on the northeast corner of Grape Street and Lemon Street.

Large amounts of water flow down Lemon Street and some of it makes it into the basin

Some of this water continues under the freeway because it can’t find a drain

Then we have channel E-2 which is supposed to collect water from a basin on Lemon Street and direct it to the OPEN CHANNEL between Lemon Street and Waite Street where Loquat Street intersects Lemon Street. What we have instead is one of a series of deflectors that direct water back onto Lemon Street.

 

 

Of all the facilities that were proclaimed to be necessary in 1982 only the open channel west of Corydon Street has been completed, after years of water pooling and laying stagnant up to the north to Vine Street along Mission Trail. It was completed in 2005 at a cost somewhere north of $500,000.00 for 730 feet of underground storm drain starting at Lemon Street / Mission Trail an ending in 495 linear feet of Open Channel west of Corydon Street, then draining onto the Lake bottom at 1260 feet of elevation.