Risky Sespe Dams Aren’t Wise Option

Hearings are scheduled on Sespe Creek legislation in the House of Representatives in Washington today.

Keep the Sespe Wild Committee will be testifying on the need for sensible options to augment our water supply--such as wider use of reclaimed water from treatment plants and viable programs for more efficient use of supplies already available. In this way, ground-water depletion will slow and we can preserve pristine Sespe Creek undammed as a natural wonder of our backcountry and the only wild and scenic river in Southern California.

In addition, taxpayers would pay a lot less for the tens of thousands of acre-feet of water generated by efficiency programs and reclamation than they would for high-risk, short-lived Sespe dams. Analysis of stream-flow records demonstrates, in fact, that as much as 39,600 acre-feet of Sespe Creek water will be put to the recharge of seawater-intruded aquifers below the Oxnard Plain, in an average year, by the state-of-the-art improved Freeman diversion project on the banks of the Santa Clara River.

Along with 7,000 acre-feet a year used for irrigation near Fillmore, more than 46,000 acre-feet a year, on average, is supplied by Sespe Creek without dubious and costly dams. That’s more than 10% of Ventura County’s annual water consumption.

We urge people to write Rep. Robert Lagomarsino and ask him to amend his bill on the Sespe--HR 2556--to close out both of the dam options in his legislation.

TIMOTHY TEAGUE

Secretary, Keep the Sespe Wild Committee, Ojai