A Poway landowner has filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against the city for allegedly failing to adhere to water pollution control permits in the Lake Poway area along the trails leading to Mount Woodson and Potato Chip Rock.
Poway City Attorney Allen Fenstermacher on Tuesday said the city denies all claims made in the suit and will file a response next month.
He said the plaintiff, Kevin T. Kelly, filed the suit after the city rejected his request to purchase his property.
After the winter storms of 2017 caused the destruction of a series of dirt-backfilled culverts along the hiking trails and roads that cross over the seasonal stream feeding Lake Poway, city staff allegedly failed to obtain the proper permits from the Army Corp of Engineers and the San Diego Water Board for the rebuilding efforts, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court.
The lawsuit alleges that the city failed to properly calculate the amount of water that can surge and flow through the creek during wetter years.
While in the process of setting up a mitigation bank to preserve the ecological values of his 43 acres in Warren Canyon in perpetuity, he said he discovered that that the city has been trying to remove Clean Water Act jurisdiction for Lake Poway and Warren Canyon as the Trump Administration redefines jurisdictional waters.
The suit asks, among other things, the city be ordered to purchase Kelly’s property.
Regarding the suit, Fenstermacher said “We analyzed it.
He said Kelly was asking $2.8 million for his property.
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