Dead in the Water

A far-reaching experiment to protect water supplies and restore the environment in fast-developing eastern Ventura County is in danger of collapsing under the weight of its lofty aspirations and a legal settlement that was supposed to make things better.

Five years ago one of the most ambitious environmental reclamation efforts in Southern California history was launched to fix Calleguas Creek, considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as one of the region’s most seriously damaged watersheds. A narrow stream whose four major tributaries spread like moist fingers across a patchwork landscape of farms and cities from Simi Valley to Oxnard, it appears devoid of consequence or romance.

But its plainness belies its importance. Four in seven county residents live near Calleguas Creek, and its waters supply up to half their needs, from drinking water to irrigation for crops and parks.

The ambitious goal of the cleanup effort, which brought together 34 parties as disparate as the Navy, farmers and developers, was not only to restore the creek bottoms, but to track and eliminate thousands of upstream pollution sources. These include everything from splattered oil droplets on highways to farm fertilizers and industrial contaminants.

Five years later and $3 million poorer, there is little to show for the effort. Everyone agrees on what needs to be done, but no one can agree on how to do it.

Numerous studies have been conducted, but no consensus has emerged on even the most basic issue of how to select a cleanup method from the many ideas that have been floated.

“There’s no commitment whatsoever that any of these plans are going to be used. It’s just a wish list at this point,” said Kim Uhlich of the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura.

Partly, the effort is groaning under the weight of its own ambition. It’s understandable, given the loftiness of its goals: preserve agriculture, conserve open space and wildlife habitat, safeguard private property, benefit the economy, coordinate local land uses, reduce erosion and flood dangers, stop water pollution, restore ground-water supplies, and save Mugu Lagoon, a prized marsh.

Legal wrangling over how fast to get to work has also complicated the process and pushed it to the breaking point.

“It potentially can derail this effort and it’s frustrating,” complained Donald R. Kendall, general manager for the Calleguas Municipal Water District and co-chairman of the watershed planning committee.

Creek Damaged by Human Activities

Calleguas Creek is both a gem and a gutter.

The most polluted of three major Ventura County watersheds, it is born nearly one mile above sea level at the Santa Susana Pass.

The creek’s northern branches--Arroyo Simi and Arroyo Las Posas--bisect Simi Valley and Moorpark. Conejo Creek gushes out of Thousand Oaks through Hill Canyon to join the Calleguas Creek near Cal State Channel Islands in Camarillo.

Farther downstream, Revolon Slough disgorges coffee-colored agricultural runoff into the stream. Calleguas Creek spills its turbid, tan waters into Mugu Lagoon, and from there into the Pacific, 30 miles from its headwaters.

Calleguas drains a vast and conflicted landscape. Mostly dry by midsummer, its flows can reach 22,000 cubic feet per second during heavy storms--more rushing water than the average flow in the Colorado River.

Over time, human activities have damaged the creek. Wetlands were cleared for crops. Today, the watershed contains 37 industrial outfalls, 400,000 people, four major highways and a Navy base. Most of the water flowing through the creek during the dry season comes from the county’s seven sewage treatment plants. Virtually every drop of rain and rivulet of driveway runoff, every toilet flush and gallon of drainage from irrigation sprinklers in a 343-square-mile area ends up in the creek.

Trying to survive in this hostile environment are 53 rare plant and animal species. Dip into waters most anywhere along the banks of Calleguas Creek, Revolon Slough or Conejo Creek and one can see the damage tattooed on bodies of fish.

“You pull the fish out of the water and almost every one of them have open lesions from chemical problems,” said Deborah Smith, assistant executive officer for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Ground water, concealed in 10 major aquifers strung along the creek like pearls on a necklace, has been sucked out, helping to dry up streams. In Pleasant Valley, so much water has been pumped out that the earth is subsiding.

Long-lived pesticides, some banned nearly 30 years ago, also continue to leak from fields and threaten wildlife. Irrigation runoff sweeps contaminants into creeks and dumps them into Mugu Lagoon.

“Mugu Lagoon is the end of the drainpipe. Everything that happens upstream affects the lagoon,” said David Magney, an Ojai consultant who joined the project to help restore wetlands.

Mussels in the lagoon contain four times more toxaphene, DDT, dachtal and chlordane than mollusks found in Los Angeles Harbor. At the top of the food chain, light-footed clapper rails, an endangered bird, are having a hard time reproducing because of pesticide accumulations, studies show.

Development, too, has fundamentally altered the landscape and the flow of water. As more pavement coats the land--more than 80,000 acres have been converted to urban use in the east county since 1968--less soil is available to absorb rainfall. Slick city surfaces whisk away water, turning storm drains into torrents and causing erosion and flooding downstream.

Creek Waters Wash Away Property

Howard Jones has seen the rising tide of development ravage the 60-acre raspberry and lettuce patch he has farmed in the Santa Rosa Valley for three decades.

His property is tucked at the base of Hill Canyon, a steep, funnel-like gorge that serves as the drain for Thousands Oaks and Newbury Park. Once dry, Conejo Creek swells during storms to devour his land. Two acres have washed away in recent years, he said.

“See all of that?” Jones said, pointing to saturated banks above the roiling stream. “That’s loose mud. When a big storm comes, it just rips all that out and washes it away. It’s the same process that made the Grand Canyon. No one wants to talk about this problem, the problems at the top of the watershed, all the cities and development.”

But people were talking. And they decided to do something before things got worse.

In 1995, the Calleguas Creek Watershed Management Plan steering committee formed, and within a year members were brainstorming solutions at the bargaining table. There was every prospect of success. The county’s most powerful interests were engaged: farmers and environmentalists, politicians and the Navy, government regulators and businesses, cities and developers.

One of the factors that made this effort unusual was it was all voluntary. No big federal bureaucracy had come in and pointed shaming fingers and set rigid deadlines with the threat of steep fines. It also differs from traditional approaches by focusing on the entire watershed, rather than isolated problems. It was grass-roots democracy at its best and most public-spirited.

In this case, the stakes were particularly high. The outcome of the effort could determine which crops are grown, how much people pay for sewer service and whether enough water is stored in aquifers as a hedge against drought. It could determine how often beaches are closed to swimming, which open spaces will be spared the bulldozer’s blade, even how well shampoo lathers during a morning shower.

“We’re trying to maintain what we have. We don’t want to see mass urbanization in Ventura County that drives away agriculture,” Kendall said. “Water is the common link to everything we’re talking about now. Water is going to dictate a rational and logical policy for all of these different interests to coexist in a healthy manner. Water is what links us all together.”

But water is a bond easily broken too. Like a shotgun wedding, the stakeholders may be holding hands and walking toward the altar together, but there is no guarantee they will ever say, “I do.”

Upstream cities such as Simi Valley have questioned the need for large cleanup expenditures that benefit downstream users. Cities worry controls will fall on sewer plants and raise rates. Farmers blame development for ruining irrigation water. Developers object to drainage controls on parking lots, strip malls and subdivisions. Environmentalists feel they are underrepresented. And everyone seems to wonder whether the Calleguas Creek Watershed Management Plan steering committee, led by county Supervisor Judy Mikels, can keep it all together.

While none of the disputes has caused a breakdown in talks, they are reminiscent of quarrels that brought down similar watershed-protection efforts elsewhere in California.

“It’s hard enough to go into a restaurant with a group of people and decide what pizza to order, much less trying to figure out what to do across an entire watershed,” said Morgan Wehtje of the California Department of Fish and Game.

Even so, in four years of brainstorming, the Calleguas Creek committee has identified several possible solutions. They are as diverse as the participants.

One remedy calls for a $450-million public works project to divert nearly all Calleguas Creek and its tributaries into a 30-mile long pipeline. New filtration devices to improve treated sewage effluent would split waste water into two streams, one clean, the other saline. Like a big faucet, valves along the pipeline would open and close, sending brine to the ocean and clean water to cities, farms and wildlife areas, keeping it away from areas prone to flooding, and mixing it with ground water to restore wells tainted by pollution. It could lower water rates, ensure a stable supply and reduce reliance on costly imported water, Kendall said. Congress appropriated $2 million in the past two years for a study of the project.

“I don’t see any other way we’re going to deal with our problems if we don’t build this,” Kendall said.

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But there is also concern it could be used as a dump chute.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Michael K. Stenstrom, director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department. “If it’s not managed correctly, it could be a big sewer and people could put all kinds of stuff in it and throw it into the ocean.”

The California Coastal Conservancy proposes tearing down some levies and acquiring sensitive lands so Calleguas Creek can spread out over part of the Oxnard Plain as it once did. A more natural creek is a cost-effective way to slow stream flows, filter pollutants, reduce flooding and restore wildlife habitat, said Peter Brand, project manager for the conservancy.

Other potential remedies include low-salt household water softeners, preserving open space and greater use of so-called “best management practices,” such as drip irrigation for agricultural pollution and catch basins for storm water runoff.

Today, the watershed management project faces the most serious test of its resolve--and its viability. Ironically, it comes in the form of government intervention to hasten restoration of the watershed--the very threat the committee was formed to avoid.

A legal settlement reached one year ago requires the EPA to accelerate cleanup at a pace many participants say cannot be met, potentially shattering the delicate coalition.

In 1997, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the agency on behalf of Santa Monica BayKeeper and Heal the Bay for allowing the deterioration of Calleguas Creek and other watersheds in Southern California.

The EPA and state water quality officials finally agreed to implement “total maximum daily loads” (TMDLs) for 11 categories of pollution afflicting waterways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Seven clean-water standards must be established by 2006, targeting algae-building nutrients, pesticides, salts, boron, ammonia, PCBs and heavy metals. Controls for trash, selenium, nitrogen and pesticides are required to be in place by 2009. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, working with the watershed management committee, must establish the limits and then apportion the load among various polluters.

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Environmentalists do not apologize for forcing the hand of the local committee. They say tough controls with hard deadlines are long overdue.

“We feel like watershed management is a great idea, but it tends to spawn lots of meeting, lots of discussion and little action,” said David Beckman, senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council. “There are a number of stakeholders up there [Ventura County] that just want lots of time before they do anything. The rubber needs to hit the road.”

Members of the watershed committee reply they weren’t purposely dragging their feet. Some things take time, they say. For instance, the expedited cleanup schedule will allow only half as much time as initially hoped to deal with one of the most difficult pollutants on the watershed--chloride.

About 150,000 pounds of chloride course through Calleguas Creek daily. About 40% comes from residential soaps, detergents and water softeners, 13% from disinfectants used at sewage treatment plants and the remainder from agriculture and industrial activities, said Elizabeth Erickson, engineering geologist for the state water quality board.

“Every user adds their teaspoon of salt. It’s like a big salt snowball that rolls downhill. People downstream get the worst of it,” Erickson said.

Strawberries and avocados absorb it and are slowly poisoned. The damage is evident in the crispy leaves of a 20-acre avocado grove managed by Somis Pacific Agriculture near Moorpark. The yields are down 35% because chloride in wells is up, Somis Pacific owner Sam McIntyre said.

“If we don’t find a way to get rid of these salts, we’re gonna lose more plants,” McIntyre said.

Studies are underway throughout the watershed to pinpoint chloride sources, in part because the government in August will for the first time impose a limit on chloride discharges. Sewer plant operators fear they make easy targets for control, and that, they say, could result in higher rates for customers. Also, the expedited schedule may preclude time to design and build the brine line to comprehensively manage salts in the watershed, Kendall said.

“There are a lot of people who are mad about this. They have put in a lot of time, effort and money to get a consensus and the regulators are going to give them the solution before they are done,” said Lowell Preston, manager of water resources for Ventura County. “I think if these TMDLs are done by the regional board, this effort will fall apart. People are starting to say, ‘Why are we doing this if they are going to make the decision for us? Why am I wasting my time?’ ”

Management Option Not Always a Good Fit

Protecting water supplies by managing the surrounding lands gained favor around the country in the past decade. But increasingly it appears the grass-roots watershed management approach may be poorly suited to the urban region that includes Ventura County, said Catherine Kuhlman, associate director of the water division for the EPA’s California office.

“They don’t always work. They are clearly not a silver bullet for cleaning up pollution,” Kuhlman said. “They tend to work when local people come together to deal with issues they care about, on things like salmon, where there is automatic consensus. But in Southern California, it gets more complex.

“Most people moved into the urban environment long after streams were turned into open sewers or a flood-control conveyance,” she said. “Most people don’t even know what a river is supposed to look like. In some parts of the L.A. region, you look into a river and see TVs and shopping carts in it and you don’t even think of it as a waterway.”

FYI

To participate or learn more about the Calleguas Creek watershed protection effort, you can:

* Check the Calleguas Creek watershed Web page at www.calleguas.com/cc.htm.

* Send an e-mail information request to watershed@calleguas.com.

* Attend a stakeholder meeting March 30 at the County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura.

* Call Supervisor Judy Mikels at 582-8010, Eric Bergh at the Calleguas Municipal Water District at 526-9323, or Jon Bishop (213-576-6601) or Elizabeth Erickson (213-576-6683) at the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

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Troubled Watershed

Calleguas Creek and its tributaries are vexed by human-induced problems that threaten their ability to provide water for wildlife, agriculture and growing cities. About half of Ventura County’s residents live within the watershed, and water flowing in the streams supplies half their needs. Farming and urbanization have fouled the water supply with silt, pesticides and salts. An effort launched five years ago to fix it has progressed slowly, prompting a lawsuit to kick the cleanup into high gear. But it could unravel a coalition working to save the streams.

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Calleguas Creek Watershed

Land on the move

About 1.2 million tons of soil erodes in the watershed annually. Where it comes from:

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Ventura County’s population growth

Increased population has helped degrade the Calleguas Creek watershed

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*Projected

Sources: California Department of Finance; Calleguas Creek Watershed Management Plan draft