Environmental Study on Levee, Road Project OKd

In what environmentalists charge is a stealth move to lay the groundwork for a proposed baseball stadium, city environmental officials signed off Wednesday on plans to extend Olivas Park Drive and build a levee along the Santa Clara River.

The decision to certify the road project’s environmental impact report comes despite fears that changes to the riverbank could threaten the already endangered steelhead trout and cause flooding on the Oxnard side of the river.

Just as upsetting, environmentalists say, is that the city has not been upfront about links between the $23-million Olivas Park Drive extension project and the $18.7-million ballpark planned for celery fields nearby.

A levee built to protect the road from flooding would also protect the stadium site, which lies on a federal flood plain. Also, the environmental impact report, or EIR, for the road refers to the proposed Centerplex project, which includes the ballpark.

Moving forward with the levee, or a road functioning as a levee, is a critical first step toward building the stadium, because a stadium cannot legally be developed without it, city officials said.

“The EIR is a stealth EIR. It was clearly developed for a very different project than the innocuous title Olivas Park Drive Extension Project implies,” environmental consultant Carla Bard said. “The public . . . and interested parties were and still are misled and confused by the title.”

City planners deny that charge, saying that the road project had been planned long before the stadium idea arose and that more environmental study would be needed before a ballpark would be developed.

“There is the misperception on the public’s part that this is the only document that will be done for the stadium,” city planner Karen Bates said. “That is not true. More will be done.” The city’s Environmental Review Committee, composed of three staff members, certified the report Wednesday.

As environmentalists filed out of City Council chambers Wednesday afternoon, dozens of residents arrived for a public discussion of the stadium project. In a dramatic turnaround from a public meeting last week, 30 speakers showed up to support Centerplex, while only 10 urged the council to reject the high-priced proposal.

Developer John Hofer has agreed to donate 20 acres of agricultural land near the Ventura Auto Mall off Johnson Drive if the city agrees to build a ballpark there. While many residents oppose the plan’s costs, environmentalists say it is the steelhead trout and the city of Oxnard that will strike out in this baseball deal.

“This project includes four major land-use amendments including 40 acres of [agricultural] land . . . all for the purposes of Centerplex,” said Margaret Sohagi, a lawyer for the city of Oxnard. “And the EIR draft does not even mention the impact on the steelhead trout.”

Though it has not yet been designed, the levee could change the flow of the river, thereby decimating the indigenous steelhead trout population, environmentalists believe.

But the city challenges the notion that this section of the Santa Clara River is actually steelhead habitat. They base their view on a city-funded environmental consultant’s report.

“In systematic surveys, the California Department of Fish and Game reported no more than five adult steelhead trout in the Santa Clara River in the last five years,” city planner Bates said. She added that the report did not specify from which part of the river the sample was taken.

In July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing steelhead trout as an endangered species and has already identified the Santa Clara River as steelhead habitat. Activists say this was not included in the environmental report or its later amendment.

They also question another impact of the road extension and levee: increasing the value of developer Hofer’s land. The site Hofer has offered for the stadium lies in the flood plain and cannot be developed without flood control efforts.

“There seems to be only one major beneficiary to taking land west of the Santa Clara River out of the flood plain,” wrote Jean and Arthur Marshall in a letter presented to the Environmental Review Committee Wednesday. “And that is the Hofer group, whose land would immediately more than double in value as it is placed in commercial zoning.”

But the more than two dozen supporters who turned out Wednesday night urged officials to think of the city’s youth.

“Ventura is poised with the unique opportunity that could never come again,” said resident Mike Takeda. “This is more involved than just a baseball stadium. It would be a way for Ventura to develop itself as a community place.”