Vision for Maritime Center Takes Shape

From the second floor of the Channel Islands National Park headquarters, a vivid imagination is needed to envision a new environmental education center on a 2-acre lot at the entrance to Ventura Harbor.

The site is cluttered with slabs of busted concrete, jetty supports standing like towering chess pieces, and outhouses. The islands are lost in a curtain of fog.

But in her mind’s eye, Carol J. Spears, the park’s chief of interpretation, can see the new building, which would mark a major expansion of the park’s headquarters. Educators and planners have been designing the center on paper for the past eight years.

And the first step toward making it a reality was taken recently, when the Ventura Port District board donated land for the center.

“It’ll be school buses unloading 80 kids at a time and a picnic area,” said Spears, gazing out her office window to the site at the end of Spinnaker Drive. “There will be a foghorn and sounds of the sea at the entrance. It’s going to be educational, but it’s going to be fun and hands-on and experiencing things, too.”

Constraints of the school day and travel costs prevent many students from visiting Channel Islands National Park; the closest island is an hour’s boat ride away. So for years, the National Park Service had searched for an onshore location to feature displays and simulations showcasing the islands’ best features and giving youngsters an appreciation of California’s coast.

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The Ventura Port District board voted in June to donate the land for such a center, breathing life into the project. Terms are being ironed out, and ownership of the parcel is expected to be transferred by the end of the year, officials say.

But it will probably take about five years before the center is built. The park service lacks funds to build it, but now that a site has been selected, efforts will shift to raising money and materials from local businesses and individuals to build the center, Spears said.

Educators and city officials, too, are excited.

“It’s very, very important,” said Elaine Daugherty, vice principal at Oxnard’s Robert J. Frank Intermediate School.

“We’re in a maritime climate, we live at the beach, yet many of our kids who live five miles from the beach have never been there. This would be much closer to the hearts of kids because it is animal and plant life, stuff that really excites them, like big marine mammals and whales,” Daugherty said.

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Ed Wohlenberg, general manager of the Ventura Port District, said the decision to donate the land, valued at about $700,000, was easy for the board. He said an environmental education center would be a perfect addition to the restaurants, retail shops and hotels at Ventura’s Harbor Village.

David Kleitsch, economic development manager for Ventura, said the national park headquarters is a big draw to the harbor, a key part of the city’s economy.

“It brings people into the community. The park service office is like an anchor store at a mall. It’s a priority to continue to enhance that,” Kleitsch said.

Spears said the center would feature rooms that attempt to re-create three island ecosystems: a marine kelp forest, tidal shorelines and coastal sage shrub land. Three laboratories would let students participate in experiments in freshwater and ocean biology. One room would house a library; another would be set up for group projects. Part of the museum would be dedicated to the cultural history of the islands, from Chumash Indians to Spanish explorers to ranchers.

Live images of seabirds and lumbering elephant seals along with park ranger interpretations would be beamed to the center by computer and video links, Spears said.

The natural wonders of the islands escape Southern California urbanization because they are so remote. Only the hardy make the four-hour trip to San Miguel Island, the most distant of the five.

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Only 60,000 people set foot on the Channel Islands last year, making the national park one of the least-visited in the West.

The environmental education center would bring the islands closer to the people.

“When you’re out there, it’s a world of sea lions, gulls, whales, seals, island foxes, all surrounded by ocean. It’s a wilderness,” Spears said. “Here, we have one of the most densely populated centers on the planet within an hour’s boat ride of this natural resource, and now this community has the opportunity to form another link to it without any impact to the resource.

“We’d love to have every schoolchild go out there once a year. If that’s not possible, at least this center will re-create some of the experience of being on the island.”