SANTA PAULA : Study to Save Santa Clara River Planned
A committee of developers, conservationists and farmers is poised to pay an environmental consulting firm $500,000 to develop a plan for preserving the imperiled Santa Clara River.
The 24-member river project committee selected CH2M Hill, Inc., a Colorado-based firm with more than $1 billion in long-term contracts with the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies.
Recent clashes among farmers, developers and environmentalists over the future of the resource-rich river spurred the study, known as the Santa Clara River Management Enhancement Plan.
The 100-mile river runs from the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County down through Fillmore, Santa Paula and Oxnard before tumbling into the ocean.
The first phase of the contract, worth $80,000, must be approved by the Board of Supervisors before it can be implemented, committee member Cat Brown said.
The committee hopes to schedule the item for the board’s Aug. 17 meeting, said Brown, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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