Conservancy Targets Santa Clara River Land

The state Coastal Conservancy is primed to spend $4.8 million on hundreds of acres along the Santa Clara River, the first step in the environmental group’s plan to purchase and restore a 15-mile swath of private land along the free-flowing river.

The land targeted includes 220 acres owned by attorney Allen Camp in the Montalvo area, near the Ventura Freeway bridge connecting Ventura and Oxnard.

In addition to this property, conservancy leaders say they are negotiating with other landowners for 1,000 acres along the river. Those purchases would be boosted by an additional $4.4 million in Proposition 12 bond money, the statewide measure approved by voters in March that provides $2.1 billion in part to preserve open space and wildlife habitat.

The statewide measure, the largest parks bond in U.S. history, is meant to repair and expand local and state parks.

Buying the land “is a very, very important step,” said Ron Bottorff of Friends of the Santa Clara River in Ventura. “It kicks things off.”

The conservancy, he said, “has landowners convinced this is the right thing to do.”

In July, the conservancy outlined ambitious plans to create a permanent protected area along the river, part of an overall strategy to undo man-made changes that have left the area prone to flooding and harmed some plants and animals that live on the banks.

The conservancy calls the project the largest land-acquisition effort in Southern California in the agency’s 24-year history.

The project 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.

“The purpose is to restore a natural state to the river,” said Peter Brand, project director for the conservancy. “We want as much of the adjoining land as we can get.”

The conservancy’s nine-member governing board is expected to formally approve the Santa Clara River purchase at its Ventura meeting today, in addition to announcing funding for several other projects. They include $1.75 million to study removing the Matilija Dam, and another $4 million to buy land on the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County.

Some board members toured some of the conservancy’s other projects and did a little window shopping of potential purchases Wednesday. Members stopped by Ormond Beach in Oxnard to see the wetlands owned by Southern California Edison, and checked out Surfers Point in Ventura to see the products of efforts to distribute thousands of pounds of rocks to prevent erosion.

The 220 acres in the so-called Santa Clara River Parkway project would be bought by the Coastal Conservancy and then transferred to the Nature Conservancy, a private nonprofit group that would eventually manage the land along with the county and the city of Ventura, Executive Director Bill Ahern said. Camp, the landowner, is expected to lease some of the land back to continue growing lemons.

For years, landowners have been troubled by property along the river, which often overflows its banks and makes development nearly impossible. Under the proposal, the river would have more room to flow and would eventually revert to its natural state, a condition more favorable to wildlife.

“This will cost tens of millions of dollars more, but we’re positive they’ll come,” said Ahern. He added that the owners “have kind of gotten flooded out” and are amenable to selling.

The Santa Clara River is home to 22 rare plants and animal species, including nine threatened and endangered ones, such as the southwestern willow flycatcher bird. The stream’s lower stretch is also proposed as a critical habitat for the endangered southern steelhead trout.

Once completed, officials envision a network of trails and nature parks that would connect the natural area along the river.