A New Vision for River

The 96-mile-long Santa Ana River has all the troubles to which an urban waterway is heir: destructive flooding, turf battles, pollution, streamside development, endangered species and an epidemic of weeds.

Yet Southern California’s largest stream system has been mostly ignored by environmentalists and state power brokers, who have focused much more attention on reviving the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers.

A bill introduced by Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) would change that by creating a state conservancy district. The district would manage the watershed, which covers 2,800 square miles and is home to 5 million people in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“My goal,” Correa said, “is to coordinate the efforts of all the entities touching the river, attract tax dollars to the area, and expand recreational opportunities in one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.”

Establishing a cohesive management plan won’t be easy. The heavily used -- and litigated -- river runs through three counties, 13 Assembly districts, seven state Senate districts, 59 cities, 18 school districts and 97 water provider jurisdictions.

Creating a conservancy district would classify the river as a state recreational asset, allowing officials to take funds from already approved park and water bonds for flood control, parklands, public trails and habitat restoration.It also would provide a long-term plan for the watershed, which stretches from Big Bear Lake to the sea. Ultimately, the waterway could be a link in a regional network of river-bottom parks in an area where the population is expected to double by 2050.

Correa is trying to steer clear of political squabbles over territory, private property rights and funding, particularly as state lawmakers face a budget shortfall of as much as $35 billion. But he has become the target of criticism from some who note that he plans to run for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors next year and may use river enhancement as a platform.

His proposal for the Santa Ana has run into stiff resistance in Orange County, where local officials are studying a plan to build a $700-million freeway extension above the riverbed.

Last month, the supervisors and the Orange County Water District both voted to oppose Correa’s proposal on grounds that it would block the freeway extension and create an unnecessary layer of government.

But the idea of restoring the Santa Ana to improve the quality of civil life and wildlife is catching on. Norco, the equestrian capital of the Inland Empire, wants more horse trails. San Bernardino plans to develop a wetland area near downtown. The Wildlands Conservancy, which already has spent $32 million in private funds on land acquisition in the watershed, has plans for a hiking trail from the San Bernardino Mountains to Huntington Beach.

In Riverside, which embraces a nine-mile section of the river, Mayor Ron Loveridge said, “If the city of Los Angeles can bring life to the L.A. River, we can do likewise to the Santa Ana.

“It should be more than just a flood channel,” he added. “Perhaps there are ways we can use the Santa Ana to organize urban space, promote civic life and preserve and restore habitat.”

State Resources Secretary Mary Nichols, whose agency manages the seven California conservancy districts, agrees.

She began her own education on the Santa Ana River last summer, when she took a raft trip with naturalists along a two-mile stretch south of Chino.

“We floated past farmlands and warehouses, affluent new developments and poorer old neighborhoods, past a golf course and under bridges,” she said. “There were a few secluded stretches during the voyage when I imagined myself far from civilization.”

Pat Tennant, habitat restoration manager for the Orange County Water District, spends his working hours in just such a place: the 2,150 acres of untrammeled wetlands behind Riverside County’s Prado Dam. It’s among the largest stands of riparian vegetation in Southern California.

Despite a development boom that is consuming much of the remaining dairy land and open space in neighboring Chino, Corona and Norco, the wetlands area is still a haven for a variety of threatened and federally endangered species, including Santa Ana suckers, red-sided garter snakes and southwestern willow flycatchers.

On a recent weekday, Tennant strode through a dense grove of willows in search of the least Bell’s vireo, a federally endangered songbird. When the bird was classified as endangered in 1986, there were about 19 pairs migrating from Mexico each spring to nest in the Prado wetlands.

Efforts to enhance vireo habitat by removing arundo, an exotic cane that clogs the river bottom, and replacing it with the bird’s preferred vegetation such as mulefat, have reversed the creature’s decline.

“This place has become a mecca for vireos,” Tennant said, peering at a pair of the small, gray birds through binoculars. “Last year, we had 350 pairs, the second-largest population in the state, and they were sporting the crispest, cleanest plumage you ever saw.”

That kind of talk is encouraging to Jeff Davis, director of the Water Resources Institute at Cal State San Bernardino.

“I applaud Correa for making people aware that we have a chance to save a jewel from being paved over,” he said. “Five years from now may be too late.”

Correa and his staff are trying to resolve concerns over who would have authority over the conservancy, how its funds would be allocated and its potential effects on local river enhancement projects and private development.

Correa has proposed a 13-member conservancy governing board that would include state, county and local representatives and members from two Native American tribes and the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, which coordinates programs designed to improve the river’s water resources.

No one with a claim on the river is happy with that proposal.

“It needs a lot of work,” said Daniel Cozad, deputy general manager of the watershed authority. “For one thing, the board is too large to make good decisions quickly. For another, the focus should be on local and county-based control.”

Correa wouldn’t disagree. “People have expressed legitimate concerns, and we’re addressing them,” he said. “But our basic premise hasn’t changed: We want to preserve the Santa Ana.”