Sierra Club Member Forms Group to Help the Santa Clara River : Environment: Ron Bottorff, a 20-year activist, takes up cause in his own back yard to protect endangered species.

Ron Bottorff, a retired aerospace engineer from Newbury Park, had been a member of the Sierra Club for nearly 20 years and part of a committee to protect the state’s endangered plants and wildlife for more than a year.

He had hiked the Sierra and climbed the hills of the Ventura County backcountry.

But it wasn’t until recently, when he heard about the plight of the Santa Clara River and its competing pressures from development, mining and farming, that Bottorff decided to escalate his involvement in local conservation.

Bottorff founded the Friends of the Santa Clara River in June after reading an article in The Times about threats to the river. He sees the group as a kind of environmental watchdog, guarding the river against the forces that would destroy it.

“I used to think the Santa Clara was just a pretty valley,” Bottorff said last week. “But, here right in my own back yard were all these species under threat.”

The Santa Clara River supports five endangered species as it winds 100 miles from headwaters down the Santa Clara Valley through Fillmore, Santa Paula and Ventura, before it empties into the sea at McGrath State Beach in Oxnard.

But despite the fact that the Santa Clara is one of the last mostly free-flowing rivers in Southern California, it has had few protectors over the years.

By contrast, the Ventura River, which flows less than 20 miles from headwaters above Lake Casitas out to sea, has long had a guardian in Mark Capelli and the Friends of the Ventura River. The state biologist has lent his off-hours and expertise to protect the river from diversions, development and excessive mining.

And the Sespe Creek, which winds 55 miles through the county’s backcountry before its confluence with the Santa Clara River, won partial protection as a wild and scenic river after Alisdaire Coyne and the Keep the Sespe Wild Committee waged a years-long battle on its behalf.

“The Ventura River has friends and the Sespe Creek has a lot of friends, but the Santa Clara didn’t have any--until recently,” Bottorff said.

The timing of the new group’s formation is excellent, say biologists at state and federal agencies officially charged with the river’s well-being.

The California Coastal Conservancy and other agencies are working with a steering committee made up of area farmers, miners, developers and landowners on a $170,000 study that will examine the Santa Clara River as a whole, integrated system.

The goal of the Coastal Conservancy is to document how conflicting uses of the river at various points along its length affect the river system as a whole and to develop a plan to protect the river in the future.

One question to be studied is the potential impact--on the river’s path and speed downstream--of developers’ requests to line 30 miles of the river with concrete from Santa Clarita to Fillmore.

The steering committee also will examine how large riverbed quarries affect agriculture and the stability of bridges along the Santa Clara, and will look into the impact on fish and wildlife of flood-prevention brush clearing projects.

“Everything interacts,” said Cathy R. (Cat) Brown, U. S. Fish and Wildlife biologist and steering committee member. “There are landowners who want to do things to protect their land, in conflict with the flood-control district, whose mandate is to protect public safety and property.

“We need to sit down and find a solution that protects the resources but allows legitimate uses of the river,” she said.

Reed Holderman, resource enhancement manager for the Coastal Conservancy, compared the river to a railroad track with oncoming freights on a collision course.

“We are all headed for a train wreck with all these conflicting uses,” he said. “It’s important to deal with these things now before they become disasters.”

Bottorff applauded the state’s effort to develop a plan for the river with comments from residents and representatives of industry who would be affected. But he said membership of the Santa Clara River Enhancement and Management Plan Steering Committee is incomplete without environmental representation.

“The steering committee is composed of 23 people who are landowners, agency officials, gravel mining interests and developers, but no conservation-oriented groups,” he said. “We feel that is a significant omission.”

Bottorff has applied to Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Kildee for representation on the steering committee. The request is now under review, a spokesman for Kildee’s office said.

Holderman welcomed the conservation community as a valuable addition to the committee. William Berger, vice president and general manager of Southern Pacific Milling Co. in El Rio, agreed.

“It will be another voice in the group,” said Berger, who represents mining interests on the committee. “And if this is to be a meaningful plan, you have to address all the concerns.”

Bottorff said his new group is in the process of incorporating and seeking nonprofit status from the state. About 16 people attend meetings, with many also members of other area conservation groups.

But more such concerned people are needed to weather what Bottorff predicted would be a “long struggle” to preserve the Santa Clara River.

“As a member of the Sierra Club biodiversity task force, our mission is to do the best we can to preserve biodiversity all over California. And here is a great chance to do something about it right here at home.”