Developer Ordered to Halt Lagoon Pumping : Ormond Beach: Baldwin Co. faces up to $6,000 per day in fines if it continues to remove water from its property.

A state agency Tuesday ordered an Ormond Beach landowner and developer to stop pumping water from a natural lagoon where endangered species live, or face fines of up to $6,000 per day.

The Baldwin Co.’s pumping of the lagoon to reduce flooding on its property at Ormond Beach appears to be a violation of the California Coastal Act, the California Coastal Commission said in a “stop-work” order faxed to the developer late Tuesday.

Also, all 20 to 30 acres of inundated Baldwin property have been designated a wetlands partly because the parcel has flooded periodically for decades, state officials said.

“It appears from our investigation that not only are they draining the system, but they put a dike in one of the canals to prevent water from migrating onto their property,” said Christopher Price, a Coastal Commission analyst. “That requires a permit.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is also investigating whether a federal permit for pumping is required as well, a spokesman said.

Baldwin officials, who want to build 5,000 residences on the beachfront property just north of Port Hueneme and south of the Southern California Edison Ormond Beach generating plant, said they would check with attorneys before complying with the order.

“We think the Coastal Commission is misinformed and a little confused,” company owner James Baldwin said. “They indicated we have built dirt dikes, but we haven’t built any dirt dikes. We have done limited sandbagging to protect our property, and we have pumped some water.”

The flooding occurred when the J Street and E Street canals that drain gutters and ditches in the city of Oxnard emptied into the lagoon, which this year has no outlet to the sea.

Water in the J Street Canal is also pumped from Bubbling Springs Creek by the county Flood Control District to prevent flooding on nearby Hueneme Road.

In past years, the flood-control district has breached a sandbar each spring to drain the lagoon. But last year the flood-control district agreed to suspend the practice while endangered least terns nested and their young matured.

Then in March the endangered tidewater goby fish was also found in the J Street Canal. Regulatory agencies notified the flood-control district that it needed a permit to drain the lagoon again.

But Baldwin, which wants the lagoon flooding stopped immediately, has threatened to sue the district for illegally taking its land if the county does not stop pumping water from the springs to the lagoon.

Although the company’s land is now vacant, and there are no existing permits to develop it, owner Baldwin said he is acting partly to establish a precedent.

“Our concern is that if we allow water to be pumped onto our property now, that we’ll never get them to stop,” he said. “A lot of people would like to call land that is not a wetland, a wetland. We feel there is a concerted effort to cause this (flooding) to happen.”

But the flood-control district cannot stop pumping water from Bubbling Springs without flooding public streets, district head Alex Sheydayi said.

“We haven’t even examined that possibility because it’s not negotiable,” Sheydayi said.

To both avert a possible Baldwin lawsuit and clear outlets from Bubbling Springs, the district applied for permission Tuesday from the Army Corps of Engineers to begin its own pumping of the lagoon.

According to its application, the district would pump water from the six-foot-deep lagoon over the sandbar and into the ocean, lowering the water level by up to 2 1/2 feet.

“We were hoping to be out there doing something (next) Monday,” Sheydayi said.

The corps has not determined whether the pumping will be allowed.

The pumping will have to be evaluated for its effect on the animals and wetlands, said David Castanon, the corps’ local chief.

“Sometimes, what looks like a small project can have big impacts,” he said. He said if all the concerns of agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are met it is possible a permit could be issued this week.

Price of the Coastal Commission said the flood-control district also needs a state permit to begin pumping. But Sheydayi said the city of Oxnard could also issue such a permit and was preparing a city application Tuesday.