12 Miles of Santa Clara River Targeted for Restoration

A key stretch of the Santa Clara River could be taken out of private hands and run by the government to promote wildlife and nature parks under an ambitious environmental recovery plan unveiled Monday.

The proposal, conceived nearly a decade ago and now pushed closer to reality by the California Coastal Conservancy, seeks to acquire and restore 6,400 acres of some of the best remaining stream-side habitat in Southern California. The plan focuses on a 12-mile portion of the river between the ocean and the foothills that forms an ecologically as well as politically sensitive boundary, dividing stream-loving plants and animals from urbanity and separating Oxnard from Ventura.

It won’t be easy, however, since many difficult agreements must be forged among a multitude of government agencies, landowners and environmental groups. At the outset, two Ventura-owned golf courses, right in the midst of the river corridor proposed for protection, pose a significant obstacle. Nonetheless, the proposal appears to enjoy wide support and a willingness to proceed prevails, officials say.

“This is a huge, huge step toward the concept of a continuous greenway from the river estuary to about as far as you can get it inland,” said Ron Bottorff of Friends of the Santa Clara River.” This is phenomenal stuff and will give the river a major, major piece of protection.”

The goal is to undo some of the human encroachments that have severely degraded the river, including golf courses, farms and sand and gravel mines. Those modifications, along with levees to protect homes and highways from floods, have caused big chunks of the riparian ecosystem to come crashing down.

The proposal coincides with a separate 57,000-acre, habitat-protection project at the other end of the river, in the headwaters nearly 100 miles away in the Angeles National Forest. That plan, already approved by the state Legislature, would allocate $2.5 million this year to begin acquiring properties under a program run by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

If the efforts succeed, the Santa Clara River could become a model for other parts of the state wrestling with ways to balance growth and environmental protection along contested rivers and streams.

“This will be the biggest river restoration project in Southern California,” said Peter Brand, project manager at the state Coastal Conservancy. “This could happen in many of the big rivers around California.”

The Santa Clara River is home to 22 rare plant and animal species, including nine threatened and endangered ones such as the least Bell’s vireo and southwestern willow flycatcher birds and a reclusive fish known as the unarmored three-spine stickleback. The stream’s lower stretch is also proposed as critical habitat for the endangered southern steelhead trout, which uses the stream like a freeway to move between the Pacific Ocean and gravelly mountain creeks to spawn.

A 130-acre estuary, the heart of the reclamation project, has been especially degraded, having lost about 88% of its original wetlands. Most of the loss was due to draining and filling, but the estuary remains an important pit stop for shorebirds and migratory waterfowl.

To restore natural resources, the proposal calls for acquiring 6,400 acres of sensitive lands, some of them in private hands, some of them owned by local governments, and folding them into one continuous park from the beach nearly to Santa Paula. The first phase involves spending about $15 million for 2,180 acres held by nine property owners along a stretch of the river a few miles north of the estuary, Brand said. Those acquisitions could begin by this autumn.

Funds would probably come from the Santa Clara River Trustee Council, which administers oil spill settlement funds for the restoration of the river. The state conservancy has received a National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant for the acquisition of estuarine habitat near the river mouth, and the project has been selected as a priority project to be funded by the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project, a partnership of state and federal agencies dedicated to the protection and restoration of the region’s wetlands.

The plan was developed by the Coastal Conservancy and presented to the Ventura City Council on Monday for consideration. The conservancy seeks to join with Ventura and Oxnard to acquire the lands and jointly manage them.

But Ventura Community Development Director Susan J. Daluddung said two golf courses, Buenaventura and Olivas Park, are within the area proposed for acquisition. Those courses may need to be relocated, probably to agricultural land, which would require approval of the voters under the 2-year-old farmland preservation law known as Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, or SOAR, she explained.

“We see this as a marvelous opportunity and it’s very heartily endorsed, but the devil is in the details,” Daluddung said. “You’re trading green recreation space for natural habitat and a river parkway, but it might require use of farmland. We have to protect the public interest in the golf courses, too. It’s very delicate. We don’t want to go rushing headlong into this.”

Brand is more optimistic, saying there might be a way to work around the two golf courses while protecting sensitive areas on the river. The links are at risk, too, of being destroyed by floods, which might force their relocation, he added.

The Santa Clara River parkway proposal, as it is called, is just the latest chapter in the long and often disastrous history of the Santa Clara River. The waterway--the longest and most free-flowing river in Southern California--meanders through scenic canyons, cities and citrus groves on its way from the High Desert to the estuary near Ventura Harbor.

At its most serene, the river guided overland explorers and missionaries to the coast and today is one of the region’s last remaining major wildlife corridors for migrating animals, including deer, bears and coyotes. But beneath its surface beauty, the river has a treacherous past, including the disastrous collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 and a 1969 flood that wiped out crops and development for 50 miles. Managing its split personality has been a challenge since settlers first planted crops in the verdant Santa Clara River Valley and on the Oxnard Plain.

Under the proposal, the river would get more room to roam and be allowed to revert to its natural ways. During low flows in summer, it would settle into its own braided path meandering across the 6,400 acres to be purchased. And in winter, when storm runoff can turn it into a rampaging torrent, it would blast its own course, redistributing trees and shrubs, sand and boulders the way nature intended. Natural-flowing streams that behave that way, according to scientists, typically create conditions more favorable to wildlife.

Even some levees, which for decades have sought to keep the river in check, could be removed along the lower stretch of the Santa Clara once private property concerns are eliminated and the river is allowed to spread across its historical flood plain, Brand said.

A network of trails and nature parks would connect the natural area along the river, enhancing outdoor recreation opportunities closer to urban residents of Ventura County.

“It’s expensive, but by no means a waste of money,” Brand said. “It’s something that will help property owners because they are the ones who feel it is time for the river to be managed as a public resource instead of them being responsible for the public benefits that happen in river. And it will provide recreational opportunities for generations to come.”