Countywide : Panel Approves Dredging Funds

A congressional committee has approved nearly $5 million to dredge Ventura County’s recreational harbors and pay for flood control studies of Calleguas and Santa Paula creeks.

The House Appropriations Committee also approved an undetermined amount of money to help clean up toxic solvents and low-level radioactive waste buried at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the San Fernando Valley, said John Frith, a spokesman for Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

“Calleguas Creek is woefully inadequate to handle runoff, as was demonstrated during the February flooding,” Frith said Thursday. Flooding there destroyed strawberry crops in neighboring fields and turned a nearby sod farm into a sodden mess.

The committee approved spending $320,000 to complete the study of Calleguas Creek, to help the county decide how to improve the flood control channel to protect low-lying fields nearby and the creek’s end point at the Mugu Lagoon, Frith said. Another $1 million would be spent on continuing to study ways to improve the Santa Paula Creek as a drainage channel.

The committee’s approval also includes $1.1 million for annual dredging needed at Ventura Harbor and $2.5 million for dredging required every other year at Channel Islands Harbor.

The Appropriations Committee approved these projects under the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, which faces a vote by the House and Senate.