Pressure Is Rising to Remove Matilija Dam

As a boy, Ed Henke hauled in giant steelhead from the Ventura River. It was a rite of passage shared by fathers and sons in the 1930s, when the silvery fish teemed in the river.

Today, shopping carts and debris clog former fishing holes. Southern steelhead are endangered. And an imposing dam in the Santa Ynez Mountains blocks the ocean-faring fish from spawning grounds.

Driven by memories of the way things were, and hope for what the future could become, Henke, 71, is back, after playing football for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1950s, completing graduate school at Stanford University and fighting to save salmon in Oregon. And he brings a bold message: Tear down Matilija Dam.

“[We] have prevented these resources from being kept in good, healthy and sustainable condition,” wrote Henke, who now lives in Ashland, Ore., in a recent letter to county environmental leaders. “Removing Matilija Dam will be a strong and necessary first step in making amends.”

He is not the only one ready to scrap the giant concrete edifice four miles northwest of Ojai. Indeed, dams are fast losing their luster across the West. They provide hydropower and store water, but experts blame many dams for contributing to fishery collapses, wholesale changes to aquatic environments and economic inefficiency.

Proponents of the dam, which stores water for hundreds of Ojai families, say the structure is needed.

But a diverse collection of interests, ranging from surfers to fishermen to local politicians, believes it is time to consider life without the dam.

Sacramento-based Friends of the River, a statewide lobby to protect and restore rivers, put Matilija on its top-10 list of dams to be removed in California. Getting rid of it would open 20 miles of steelhead-spawning habitat, said Steve Evans, the group’s conservation director.

Paul Jenkins of the Surfrider Foundation said the dam prevents sediments from flowing downstream, robbing beaches of needed shoreline. Tearing down the dam would restore normal flow conditions, flushing the river and restoring water quality, he said.

And Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn said beach erosion--some coastlines are losing a foot or more of shore to the waves each year--is a threat to waterfront development.

“It’s useless as a dam,” said Flynn, who invited Henke and a colleague, Donald C. Chapman, to appear before the board. “We’ve done a lot to impede sand flowing to the beaches, and the Matilija Dam is one of the reasons.”

Built in 1948, Matilija Dam was designed to hold back flood waters while storing water for residents and farms in the Ojai area. For years, it served its purpose, until it started to fill with sediment from steep mountain slopes.

By 1965, sediment loads cut the dam’s water-storage capacity in half to 3,350 acre-feet. By 1997, capacity had shrunk to 930 acre-feet. An acre-foot meets the water needs of two households for a year.

Spillways, which were installed because of concerns the dam was vulnerable to quakes and too frail to hold back a full pool, contributed to its declining storage potential, said Butch Britt, deputy director of the county’s Public Works Agency.

Indeed, it is so full of sand that even the Public Works Agency, which oversees the dam’s owner, the county Flood Control District, acknowledges that it provides little protection against floods.

“Most of the flood-control value is gone,” Britt said.

But John Johnson, general manager of the Casitas Municipal Water District, said the dam still provides enough water for about 1,000 households in the Ojai area. The Casitas district has been paying for the dam for the past 40 years and is scheduled to continue operating it for another decade.

Johnson said that removing the dam would cost $75 million and create new problems. Silt would spill into the stream, he said, ruining downstream habitat and potentially threatening downstream properties as the riverbed filled with sediment.

Nevertheless, Henke will take his case to the supervisors at 9 a.m. Tuesday during a regular meeting at the county Government Center in Ventura. The board is expected to listen to the proposal, although no decisions on the matter are expected.

“Removing the dam would move us in a positive direction, where we can divorce ourselves from the conventional-wisdom pundits and reverse this destructive negative management of our natural resources in Ventura County,” Henke states in a report he will submit to the board. “It will serve the greater public interest and help right a bad decision made some 50 years ago.”