Seasonal Feud Arrives With Runoff at Lagoon

Seasonal runoff in the lagoon at Ormond Beach has again pitted local industry and county flood control officials against environmentalists concerned about endangered species flourishing nearby.

With the ecologically sensitive wetland inches from overflowing and damaging local industries, flood control managers want to pump millions of gallons of water into the ocean.

They have applied for an emergency permit to do just that, with analysts at the Army Corps of Engineers expected to approve or reject the application this week.

But even if federal regulators decide not to allow the emergency drainage, the Ventura County Flood Control District already has submitted a standard application to do the work later this year.

Environmentalists worry that lowering the water level in the ecologically sensitive lagoon will disrupt the balance in the wetland, which for decades has harbored federally protected wildlife.

“It’s unfortunate that some very localized problems have been used to defend an idea which has devastating effect on the ecology of the Ormond Beach wetland,” said Alan Sanders of the local Sierra Club.

But companies doing business along nearby Perkins Road say that they cannot risk more damage to their equipment and property if water continues to collect in the lagoon.

“The first rain we get, it will flood,” said Dave Gable, general manager of Halaco Engineering, which recycles aluminum cans at the beachfront complex at Perkins Road.

“Flood waters would put us out of business,” Gable said. “Our main power panel would be submerged, and I have employees I have to be concerned about.”

The problem is not new.

Runoff from across the Oxnard plain collects at Ormond Beach and would naturally continue flowing out to sea, except for a sandbar that builds up each spring and acts as a barrier. Unless the water in the lagoon breaks through the sandbar or is pumped out, it floods nearby property and settles into flood channels.

“Last year, it was some supplies and equipment out in the yard that were wet,” said Mitchel Kahn, an Oxnard attorney who represents the nearby Willamette Industries paper products plant.

“Over a long period of time, they rusted, and some of the cardboard couldn’t be used,” he said.

Environmentalists say property owners have constructed a set of illegal dams and barriers that have contributed to the cresting lagoon.

Two years ago the Baldwin Co., which has plans to build up to 5,000 homes near the natural wetland, was ordered by state Coastal Commission officials to stop pumping water from its property.

The Orange County-based development company ignored original requests before a cease-and-desist order was delivered to company officials.

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County flood control officials have applied for emergency permits during each of the last two years. But in both cases, the lagoon broke through the sandbar naturally before the agency pumped out water.

“Our mission is to provide flood control protection,” said John Correa, an engineer with the county flood control office. “The channels, if they’re full of water, cannot convey any runoff.

“Flood control channels work only if they’re empty and cleaned out,” he said. “So we want these channels cleaned out and ready for the expected winter.”

County officials are relying on a study performed by an outside consultant that concluded that two feet of water could be drained from the lagoon with minimal damage to the environment.

Officials at the Ventura office of the Army Corps of Engineers declined to discuss the emergency flood control application to drain the lagoon by at least 2 feet.

By Tuesday, however, they had forwarded the Ventura County application to Army Corps officials in San Francisco.

“The public comment period on that standard application is now underway,” Army Corps spokesman Herb Nesmith said. “It closes early next month.”

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Dan Pearson, president of the Point Mugu Wildlife Center, said draining the lagoon even by a few feet could wreak havoc on the California least terns, the tidewater Goby fish and other endangered species that inhabit the wetland.

“The water level in the lagoon fluctuates naturally when it’s left to its own devices,” Pearson said. “But the illegal dams have caused water to back up in different areas.

“Now they’re declaring an emergency situation when an emergency situation does not exist,” said Pearson, who spent much of his boyhood rummaging through the Ormond Beach wetland.

“When left to itself, it’s a marvelous area for dozens of species of animals,” he said. “I can’t understand why people are falling all over themselves to destroy it.”