Endangered Aqueduct

Some people think of it is as the last vestige of an impressive 200-year-old engineering feat.

Others think of it as a monument to California’s barbaric colonial heritage and the suffering of the indigenous population at the hands of the Spaniards.

But most people don’t think of it at all.

Which is why the lone surviving significant chunk of what was once the seven-mile San Buenaventura Mission Aqueduct sits forlornly in a weed-filled corner of an orchard near a freeway offramp north of the city.

“It’s sort of lost,” conceded Gary Blum, chairman of the Ventura County Cultural Heritage Board, which Monday toured the modest site off Canada Larga Road. “I was in a little state of shock that the county owns it, yet it seems to be having so much trouble trying to preserve it. . . . I don’t think there’s any question that thing has to be preserved at all costs.”

Just how that will be accomplished is unclear. The seven-member panel is considering options that range from preparing a report on possible restoration steps to finding money to help preserve the aqueduct.

“The thing is, we have no budget,” Blum said. “I was wondering why [county officials] are having such problems with it--I’m sure it all boils down to money.”

Development, neglect and, most recently, El Nino, have reduced the historic aqueduct to little more than a 100-foot-long, 10-foot-high stretch of cobblestone and mortar.

With the land around it once targeted for commercial development, the county purchased the 28,749-square-foot parcel in 1974 and erected a fence around the aqueduct’s remnants four years later.

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, granted county landmark status the next year, and became a state landmark 10 years later.

On three occasions, the county sought state and federal grant funds to place a small park on the site, but the money never materialized.

“I think they just forgot about it,” said Cathy Stanley, a volunteer with the Historic Preservation Alliance of San Buenaventura, which last year named the aqueduct as one of the city’s 10 most endangered historic sites.

Apathy has replaced outright hostility as the aqueduct’s worst enemy over the years.

The segment of the structure that remains has a gaping hole, blown asunder by dynamite in 1900 to make way for a road. Other portions of the aqueduct continue to wash away: A large hunk was spotted in a nearby creek bed in recent months.

And for visitors who may stumble across the site, there is no plaque describing the significance of what appears to be a pile of mud and cobble stones.

Now, what has been virtually forgotten may finally be wiped out of existence.

Just as floods brought an end to the aqueduct’s 80-year working life in 1862, water is again threatening what’s left of the structure that ironically sits upon property owned by the Ventura County Flood Control District.

Raging waters as much as 6 feet deep swept down Canada Larga Road on at least three occasions this winter, local residents say, eroding the soil around the fragile structure. Swollen Canada Larga Creek chewed away at the banks, which are now within a few feet of undercutting the aqueduct.

But Stanley said county officials didn’t know until she told them that the protective fence surrounding the site was washed away in this winter’s floods.

“Water reclaims its own,” said commission member Adele Steubing on Monday as she gazed at the damage.

There have been belated efforts to protect what is left of the aqueduct.

In recent weeks, county workers have placed bright blue tarps over the structure and erected a 6-foot-high chain-link fence around the site.

The county Parks Department, which is responsible for the tract’s upkeep, is applying for federal disaster funds to repair the damage and install curbing to divert the water flow, said Kim Hocking, the county administrator assigned to the cultural heritage board.

But the aqueduct is still threatened by bureaucratic indifference.

Parks officials say the aqueduct itself has suffered no damage in this winter’s floods and is therefore ineligible for emergency money, Hocking said. The money would instead go to repair flood damage near the structure.

But Hocking said Monday that he could see evidence of damage to the aqueduct even from the relatively light rains of the past month.

Others, too, have noticed ongoing deterioration.

Mac MacLaughlin said he has watched pieces of the aqueduct steadily disappear over the 11 years he has lived on Canada Larga Road, but said its gradual destruction has escalated in recent winters because the creek has changed course upstream.

And Pacific Palisades archeologist Roberta Greenwood, who first visited the site in 1968, maintained in a May 11 letter to the county that portions of the structure are in danger of collapsing.

“It’s just an engineering marvel,” Blum said. “Anything we can do to get this thing preserved and stabilized is critical.”

Whether that “anything” will come in time to save the aqueduct is unknown.

“There’s no deadline on this,” Hocking said of possible solutions to its preservation. “It’s been there 200 years.”

Correspondent Richard Warchol and Times photographer Spencer Weiner contributed to this story.