City’s Thirst Poses Threat to Waterway : Environment: The Ventura River serves urban water needs. But siphoning affects the life it supports.

About six miles up the Ventura River Valley and just west of California 33 sits Foster Park, a river-side refuge where lovers court and swallows dart through the air.

Under a canopy of giant sycamores, eucalyptus and oaks, this 200 acres of nature offers something few other parks in Southern California can--a river.

But the Ventura River, with its brushy banks that give children a chance to trap a tadpole or listen to a symphony of chirping birds, also slakes a city’s growing thirst.

And Foster Park is where the city of Ventura taps the river’s flow most heavily.

Here, the city diverts water for up to 20,000 families a year, slowing the river and leaving it shallower, thereby warming it and essentially altering the life it supports.

The diversion can hardly be noticed from the park. An underground dam cuts 60 feet down to the river’s bedrock and pipes water to the city’s water treatment plant along upper Ventura Avenue. Four wells farther up the river siphon subsurface river water off to also be sent to the water treatment plant.

“It’s our oldest and best water supply,” said Ronald J. Calkins, director of public works for the city of Ventura.

The city has turned to the river first to fill as much of its annual water needs as possible, he said. After the river, the city looks to Lake Casitas, which also gets its water from the river and its tributaries. Lastly, Ventura goes to its deep water wells in the city’s east end.

But now the city wants to increase its supply from the Ventura River. Although the city would have to prepare a complete environmental impact report before it could take more water, Calkins and other officials maintain they may have rights to claim all the water in the river during dry months.

And it’s that claim--despite city assurances that environmental repercussions would be considered--that has state biologists concerned that the lower river may soon face one of its most serious threats yet.

Based on a convoluted series of water rights transfers over the last 120 years among the Santa Ana Water Co.; Ventura Water, Light and Power Co.; Southern California Edison and others, the city claims the right to 4,000 miners’ inches per year from the river.

That’s an antiquated term of measurement left over from the state’s early mining days. It’s the equivalent of about 54,000 acre-feet of water per year--or enough water to totally supply 108,000 families.

That is more than five times what the city now takes from the river and much more than the city needs, Calkins said.

But he said the city may have a more far-reaching right to the water. The city believes that it has so-called pueblo water rights granted more than 200 years ago by Spain. And he believes that the city could prove that, if necessary, by examining historical records in Spain.

“There is some question whether we have a pueblo right, which is the right to just about anything,” Calkins said. “But if we have it, it’s great stuff. A pueblo right is the granddaddy of them all.”

A pueblo right, which California courts have already ruled can be claimed by the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, dates from the days of the missions and entitles the cities to all the water they need from nearby rivers, including ground water.

Having a pueblo right--which could still be contested in court--would exempt the city from being forced to allow a minimum amount of water to flow down the river, as California Department of Fish and Game biologists have requested, Calkins said.

Ventura’s population of 96,000 uses 16,000 acre-feet of water annually, with up to 10,000 acre-feet of that taken from the Ventura River. City-paid experts will soon begin studying the river to find out how much more water it can give up, and at what environmental cost, said Steve Wilson, the city’s water superintendent.

After that study, the city will write a master plan to improve water works at Foster Park by altering the underground dam’s intake, building a permanent dike to funnel the water into the dam and refurbishing the four subsurface wells. The city’s pipelines also need to be replaced.

“We don’t know yet how much water is available,” Wilson said. “But we’re trying to get the most we can of our water rights with the most minimal impact on the environment.”

The city wants the extra water for two main reasons.

Wilson would like to ship more water to the city’s east end, which is now supplied by poor-quality ground water from wells in east Ventura and Saticoy.

In addition to improving drinking water in the east, it would also allow the basins there to rest and refill. That would make more water available during times of drought.

But more importantly, Calkins said, the city may be able to delay for several years the very expensive proposition of building a plant to desalinate seawater if it can enhance its present water supply.

The city proposes to spend $1.5 million to study, design and implement improvements to its water diversion facilities. That compares to estimates of $33 million to $55 million to build a desalination plant.

“Spending millions to use the resources we have really pays off,” he said. “It’s a lot of money, but it’s a lot cheaper than desal.”

Calkins said Fish and Game’s request to leave water in the river for fish and wildlife may not be valid.

“I’m not sure they can make us do that,” Calkins said. “But we try to balance the needs of the river because the health of the river is important to us.”

Ken Wilson, a Fish and Game biologist and environmental specialist, said the issue is not how much water is taken when the river is swollen from rain, but how much passes by when the water level is low.

“They believe they can take all the water they want to,” Wilson said.

Diverting too much water will dry up pools, heat up the water and could wipe out the endangered species that live in the estuary along with what is left of the steelhead trout population.

“At some point, we have to say we’re not going to take any more water from these streams,” Wilson said.

If the lower stretch of the river below Foster Park is dried up by diverting too much water, what is left of the once plentiful steelhead run could disappear entirely from the Ventura River, said Fish and Game biologist Mauricio Cardenas.

Steelhead, which once ran up the river by the thousands, still exist in the river, possibly 100 to 200 of them. Cardenas said he wants to see that the population grows strong once again.

Clad in cowboy boots and jeans, Cardenas recently walked the river’s banks, checking on algae bloom at the outfall of the Ojai Valley Sanitary District sewage treatment plant.

One afternoon, as he hiked down a trail and through the brush behind the abandoned Petrochem refinery, he spooked a white egret and prompted it into graceful flight. Later, a startled great blue heron also took flight.

Back in his lumbering green pickup truck labeled with the Fish and Game logo, Cardenas drove down Old Creek Road and stopped for an impromptu temperature check of the San Antonio Creek.

He said he is concerned about the city’s plan to take more water from the river and the effect that might have on the once mighty steelhead population as well as other fish and wildlife downstream.

“It’s scary,” Cardenas said. “Really scary.”

Other Perils Ahead

Even if it retains enough water for fish and wildlife to live, the Ventura River faces other perils, now and in the years ahead.

The river is protected from pollution at its headwaters by the forest, where few people live, farming is sparse, and golf courses and industry do not exist.

Most of the large sources of pollution along the river have been controlled in recent years under the federal Clean Water Act. Industry is no longer allowed to dump chemicals into the river. The oil companies that line Ventura Avenue are highly regulated, although accidents--like a 370,000-gallon spill of oil byproducts disclosed last week--can always occur.

Sewage treatment plants also must meet a strict standard for bacteria and water temperature before their treated water can be released into the river. In fact, the Ojai Valley Sanitary District now is under state order to upgrade the level of treated sewer water it discharges.

But a more insidious problem remains in the seemingly harmless gutters along the streets of the entire populated area of the Ventura River watershed. Mark Capelli, executive director of the Friends of the Ventura River and a lecturer at UC Santa Barbara, said the storm drains are one of the most serious threats to the river and its health.

“A river is a creature of and a product of its watershed,” Capelli said. “That’s one of the reasons rivers are so vulnerable.”

The gutters that empty into storm drains collect tire remnants, dog droppings, back yard pesticides and crankcase oil. Waste from the streets of Ojai, Meiners Oaks, Oak View, Casitas Springs and west Ventura empty untreated into the river.

But a newly enforced measure of the Clean Water Act requires the cities and counties to write plans to get the pollutants out of storm drains.

Those plans are years away from being translated into action in the communities. In the meantime, said Alex Sheydayi, manager of the Ventura County Flood Control Department, public education is a must.

“People have to be educated not to back their cars up over the curb and open their crankcase into the catch basin,” he said.

In addition, Ventura County is working on regulations to reduce the amount of runoff from construction and other industrial sites, where unused concrete or grease may be left out to be knocked over in an earthquake or flushed into the river during a storm.

“It will take time,” said Sheydayi. “It’s taken us many years to get here and now it will take us many years to get out of it.”

Meanwhile, still more people and businesses will move into the Ventura River Valley and the Ojai Valley. The population in the area already tops an estimated 50,000 people. And the county’s current plan for the unincorporated area alone calls for another 2,188 homes and 5,560 residents by 2010.

Those residents will not only draw their drinking water from the river or subsurface wells, they will add to the problems of runoff by their numbers alone. Many will use fertilizers and pesticides to plant new lawns and kill weeds; residues of those chemicals will eventually make their way into the river.

And more industry is likely to eventually settle along Ventura Avenue, which parallels the river. A project proposed by Michael Towbes Development of Montecito had been in the works for five years. It would have created an industrial park on 21 acres near the avenue at Canada Larga. The project was withdrawn earlier this year, due in part to the economy and the environmental report that would have been required, said county planner Pat Richards.

But, Richards said, there will be other proposals.

“It is vacant land and someone is going to come along and develop it sometime,” he said. “The only way to change that is to change the zoning.” With the area already surrounded by industry, it would be difficult to change the zoning, he said.

And once the oil fields that line Ventura Avenue become unproductive, there will be pressure to convert that land to other industry as well, Richards said.

In addition to runoff from industry, there is residue from sprayed crops that makes its way into the river. The pesticides used to keep fruit and vegetables disease- and bug-free can also harm or kill native plants and animals in and along the river, biologists said.

And golf courses, with their manicured lawns and velvety putting greens, are notorious for high pesticide use.

There are already two golf courses in the Ventura River watershed, the public course at Soule Park east of Ojai and the private course at the Ojai Valley Country Club.

Now, the Farmont Corp. proposes to build another golf course on 203 acres of open land west of the Ventura River. Japanese media tycoon Kagehisa Toyama, owner of the Farmont property, plans to build a lavish retirement resort there, said Maurice Stans, head of the project for the corporation.

In addition to an 18-hole course, driving range and clubhouse with restaurant that have already won approval, Toyama also wants to build a retirement home on an adjacent lot.

“He reveres golf as a religion,” said Stans, a former Nixon Administration official now working in Los Angeles. “He wants to build one of the best golf courses in the world, within an hour of Los Angeles.”

But Cat Brown, a biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sees golf courses in another light.

“Golf courses are a terrible waste of land,” she said. In this case, “it will convert something with a very high value habitat into a pesticide-laden playground for the wealthy.”

The course will attract deer, birds and other wildlife, which might come to drink from the artificial lakes. But the animals of the woods are not likely to be welcome visitors at the course, Brown said.

“They will be lucky if they are only scared away,” Brown said. “More likely, they will be killed.”

But Richards pointed out that the Ventura County Board of Supervisors placed restrictions on the company to protect the environment when it approved Farmont’s plan.

Farmont will be required to install a type of membrane beneath the course that would, in theory, catch the runoff from the greens and channel it back into the lakes on the course, Richards said.

In addition, Farmont must stop using potable water and find a source of reclaimed water for the grounds within eight years.

Proponents have argued that a golf course maintains open space and is better than developing the area with housing. The current General Plan, however, allows only one house on every 20 acres for the area, Richards said.

The Riverbed Homeless

As the Ventura River winds its way from the Los Padres National Forest to the sea, it encounters one of the most complex political problems of all--homeless people who live in the riverbed.

There, in dry areas of the river bottom beneath the Main Street Bridge, live about 100 people. They include the mentally ill, the down and out and the desperate.

Some have spacious if rudimentary living areas, accentuated with carpets, picnic tables and abandoned car benches. One dwelling has two bedrooms, protected from wind and rain by blue tarps lashed to wooden frames with duct tape.

They live without benefit of plumbing for washing or personal needs. Soap from washed dishes and clothes goes into the river or into the ground. Garbage is buried or discarded in piles, although some carry their trash out to bins. And without bathrooms anywhere nearby, the ground often serves as a latrine.

And all of it--the furniture, the trash, the human waste--becomes refuse that is washed down the river and into the estuary when heavy rains create the kind of torrential flows the county saw during the last two winters.

“The presence of humans down there has a serious impact on the wildlife,” said Lawrence E. Hunt, a biologist who walked through bushes one day only to surprise a group of homeless men who told him he was lucky he was not shot.

“Fish can become infected if there is a high level of bacteria,” he said. “And birds can become infected when they eat infected clams and snails and other filter-feeding organisms.”

The homeless interfere with the natural ecosystem in other ways as well, Hunt said. Some of the river-bottom inhabitants fish without a license or regard for fishing season, he said.

“They spread nets across the water and catch the steelhead when they are going upstream to spawn,” he said. “It’s a bad situation.”

The city is now planning a major restoration of the lower river. The first phase relies mostly on volunteer efforts to remove the giant reed, arundo donax, which has invaded the river’s entire length. The reeds suck up water and oxygen, choking out native plants and clogging up the river’s flow during storms.

But the city also wants to create a nature area, called the Seaside Wilderness Park, at the mouth of the river. The project--a joint effort of the city, California Department of Parks and Recreation, and the California Coastal Conservancy--envisions the wilderness area with interpretive signs and possibly wooden walkways to protect sensitive wildlife habitat and vegetation.

Everett Millais, director of community development for the city, said the restoration can never be complete as long as there are people living in the river bottom.

“It’s a real dichotomy,” said Millais. “We have a nature preserve at the river mouth, and up the river we have a substantial homeless population living in substandard conditions. But it is an issue without an inexpensive or easy solution.”

There are not enough homeless shelters in the county to provide a place to live for those people, Millais said. And even if there were, he said it is unlikely that they would all leave.

“Some would welcome the opportunity for a place to live,” he said. “But others would not.”

A man who called himself Easy, who lives at the river bottom, falls into the latter category.

“How can they make us all leave?” he asked. “Some are experienced jungle fighters. And everybody has a weapon.”

Herbie, the 27-year-old “cellmate” with whom Easy shares a lean-to, came to the river bottom recently after he got out of jail.

“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” he said. “But I wouldn’t live in a shelter. They’re too disrespectful all the time.”

Millais said the city at one time provided portable toilets and garbage bins in a city parking lot near the bicycle trail at Main Street.

“But that didn’t begin to address the problem,” Millais said. “And ideally, we would like to get facilities (elsewhere) that would entice people to leave the river rather than making it easier for them to stay.”

But the homeless are not the only people who affect the river bottom, Hunt said. He has also found tracks from motorcycles near the estuary, and shells left by people shooting at rodents, quail or “anything else that moves,” Hunt said.

All those problems must be addressed if the plan to restore the estuary and create a nature preserve is to be successful.

But Hunt, Brown, Capelli and others who want to preserve the integrity of the river agree that the park must be planned in a way that allows people to see nature, without trampling all over it. “It’s a balancing act,” Hunt said. “You’re trying to preserve an area, but you don’t want to keep people out.”

Capelli said exposing people to a little-known resource that is so close to them is the best way to convert people to the cause of protecting and preserving the river.

“Most people don’t even see the river unless they drive up Highway 33,” he said. “And yet, here is this beautiful jewel of a river right in our own back yard.”

An Endangered Habitat

MYRIAD THREATS TO PLANTS AND WILDLIFE

The Ventura River and its tributaries provide an essential network or corridors for wildlife that roam the forest and the Ventura River Valley. The rivers and their wide channels offer animals the necessities of life--water, foraging grounds and shelter along the banks.

Voices

“There is some question whether we have a pueblo right (to Ventura River water), which is the right to just about anything. But if we have it, it’s great stuff. A pueblo right is the granddaddy of them all.”

--Ronald J. Calkins, director of Public Works, city of Ventura on the city’s water rights.

“It’s scary. Really scary.”

--Mauricio Cardenas, biologist, California Department of Fish and Game, referring to plans by the City of Ventura to study how much more water can be taken from the Ventura River at Foster Park.

Environmental Issues

* The homeless: About 100 homeless people live in the river bottom beneath the Main Street Bridge without benefit of trash pickup or flushing toilets. Their encampment, which adds waste and other pollution to the river, causes concern among public agencies working to develop a wilderness area downstream at the river mouth.

* New houses: The new Ojai area portion of the county General Plan calls for another 2,188 homes in the area around Meiners Oaks, Mira Monte and Oak View by the year 2010. That will add another 5,560 residents to the area. They will either take their water from Lake Casitas or from the ground water basins of the Ventura River Valley or the Ojai Valley.

* New development: Vacant lots along Ventura Avenue are zoned for commercial and industrial use and eventually will be developed. In addition, as the oil fields along Ventura Avenue become unproductive in years ahead, property owners will want to convert that land to other industrial uses.

Main Street Bridge: The current bridge built in 1932 and its predecessor made a favorite spot for fishing in the first half of the century.

Ventura County Fairgrounds: The fairgrounds, which filled in wetlands and part of the river delta, was at one time a Chumash village with as many as 400 inhabitants.

Seaside Wilderness Park: The city of Ventura, California Department of Parks and Recreation and the California Coastal Conservancy are working together to create a wilderness area that would let people see nature up close.

Wildlife Along The River

Los Padres National Forest: The forest, which is a vast tract of undeveloped land, helps protect the river and its watershed. There are few houses or roads and no development to cause pollution.

Arroyo Willow ( Salix Lasiolepis ): The Arroyo willow grows along the length of the river. It is a common native tree with a thin trunk only a few inches in diameter.

Coyote ( Canis Latrans ): Coyotes are nighttime wanderers along the river.

Western Goldenrod ( Euthamia ocidentalis ): The Western goldenrod is one of the native wildflowers found in the lower Ventura River.

Foster Park: The park has a river running through it, something few parks in Southern California can match. It is also the site of the city of Ventura’s water intake, which could be refurbished to allow the city to increase its diversions from the river.

Mule Deer ( Odocolleus hemionus ): Mule deer graze along river and roam through the area, nibbling on riverside vegetation and bedding down in the brush.

Least Bell’s Vireo ( Vireo bellii pusillus ): Endangered least Bell’s vireos returned to nest in the Ventura River for the first time in 85 years after Southern Pacific Milling Co. moved out. The county’s relatively small populations inhabit wetlands and riparian scrub.

Steelhead Trout ( Salmo gairdneri irideus ): The steelhead, which is being considered for listing as an endangered species, was once abundant in the river, living in the ocean most of its life and then swimming up the Ventura River and Matilija Creek to spawn. Up to 200 steelhead are thought to live between the San Antonio Creek confluence with the Ventura River and Foster Park.

Beldings Savannah Sparrow ( Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi ): The only songbird in salt marshes, the five-inch bird nests exclusively in pickleweed.

Salt Marsh Baccharis ( Baccharis douglasil ): The native salt marsh is found in the wetlands area of the estuary.

Oil Spill: In January 1993, 370,000 gallons of toxic oil byproducts that spilled into the ground and a nearby creek was pushed into the Ventura River by heavy rains.

The Estuary: Fish and wildlife that live or forage at the river mouth include the endangered tidewater goby fish, as well as California brown pelicans, the snowy plover, the California least tern and ospreys.

California Least Tern ( Sterna antillarum browni ): Colonies breed along coastal dunes and feed in nearby wetlands.

Western Snowy Plover ( Charadrius hiaticula ): These birds nest along the shoreline, marking and hiding their eggs with twigs and grass.

California Brown Pelican ( Pelecanus occidentalis californicus ): While the pelican breeds on the Channel Islands, it is commonly found along the county’s coastline.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Researched by JOANNA MILLER / Los Angeles Times