Committee Maps Out Steps to Preserve Santa Clara River

Members of a committee charged with developing a plan to preserve the Santa Clara River set priorities on Wednesday, assigning top rankings to protecting rights for water, flood control and agriculture.

The informal poll of the 25-member committee during a daylong session at the Piru Community Center showed that the diverse group is beginning to work well together on its complicated task, said Alex Sheydayi, deputy director of public works for flood control in Ventura County and co-chairman of the committee.

“We will ultimately get a plan through agreement,” he said. “That’s how we will decide where to spend our resources.”

The Santa Clara River Management and Enhancement Plan, which is projected to cost about $700,000 and take up to two years to develop, would ultimately decide how the river is preserved. It will determine which areas are suitable for activities such as farming and mining and which are more suited to wildlife protection.

Cathy R. Brown, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which conceived the idea of a plan to manage the river, said she too had ranked water, flood control and agriculture as three important areas to be protected.

But, she said, the fact that they outranked protection of biological resources indicates a need for more public education.

“Because biological resources were ranked lower does not mean they won’t be protected,” she said. “There are state and federal laws in place to make sure they are.”

The committee also discussed how to divide the river into segments called reaches for planning purposes.

“There are different issues on different reaches,” Sheydayi said. “The Santa Clara at the 101 in Ventura has development on both sides and that’s different from Fillmore, where there is agriculture on both sides.”

The next meeting, to which the public is invited, is set for 10 a.m. Dec. 8 at the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura.