American Heritage River Status

Thank you for “A Sellout for Local Control,” your June 21 editorial which laments the action of Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon in attempting to shoot down selection of the Santa Clara as an American Heritage River.

Fortunately it is not too late to counter this special-interest sellout. The Santa Clara is still in the running and apparently was only eliminated from the final 10 after McKeon’s letter. That 10 includes only two rivers west of the Mississippi, the Rio Grande in Texas and the Willamette in Oregon. If President Clinton were to add the Santa Clara, it would do a lot for geographical balance.

I don’t believe Congressman McKeon would have taken his action had he read the Santa Clara nomination document and had he appreciated the depth of support for including the Santa Clara in the Heritage Rivers program.

He stated as his main objection that the American Heritage Rivers Initiative is not a locally operated and driven action. However, as your editorial indicated, the project steering committee for the Santa Clara River Enhancement and Management Plan, on which the application was based, is precisely a broad-based group of landowners, business stakeholders, river cities, government agencies and citizens groups. More than $1 million in funding and in-kind services has been spent developing this plan. Further, the Santa Clara application was based on numerous community efforts up and down the river, including Santa Clarita’s Riverpark program, Ventura County’s Agriculture Policy Working Group, the Heritage Valley Tourism Program and various county and city historic and cultural preservation activities.

It is important for readers who support this nomination to write to the president at the White House, Washington, D.C. 20510. Letters from citizens of cities along the river--including Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Ventura and Oxnard--would be especially helpful.

RON BOTTORFF, Friends of the Santa Clara River, Newbury Park

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Congressman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon has done a great service to the citizens in Ventura County impacted by the activities of the Santa Clara River.

Last winter’s storms yielded devastating damage to crops and some livestock operations. Currently the river, if that’s what you want to call it, is an unmanaged flood plain that, except for Piru dam, is dry most of the year.

I cannot imagine what would happen if further non-flood-control management practices were present as a result of the American Heritage River designation.

Not many people realize that a major portion of the river is privately owned. Things get worse every year from lack of flood-control management. The proponents of this American Heritage River designation need to come down river and see what’s going on. I don’t see any of their names on the tax rolls or ownership maps.

Even though [the developer of] Newhall Ranch is reluctant to help its neighbors, I’m glad it got involved in this debate. This whole situation may wake up the agencies that control the river and force them to once again manage the sandbars and brush growth that facilitate the flooding.

ROB FROST, Santa Paula