Streams of Thought Converge to Save Waterway

VENTURA —  The Ventura River runs wilder and the Santa Clara River flows longer and freer. But among the waterways of Ventura County, Calleguas Creek has its own dubious distinctions.

The sloughs, washes and arroyos that snake from the rugged high lands above Somis, Moorpark, Camarillo, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks to form the Calleguas Creek Watershed are the county’s most polluted.

The low-lying Calleguas, on the fertile Oxnard Plain near the bottom of this natural drain, also is the local waterway most likely to flood, and farmers and governments typically pay nearly $3 million a year to clean up the mess.

At the creek’s mouth lies Mugu Lagoon, a rare saltwater marsh that is home to nine species of threatened or endangered birds--but which is so laden with pesticides that bird eggs sometimes crack before chicks are born and fish sometimes die because their food is buried beneath tons of mud and silt.

So this network of three dozen streams--stretching 30 miles from the Santa Susana Mountains in Los Angeles County to Point Mugu--draws keen interest from parties as diverse as clean water enforcers, wildlife preservationists, flood control experts and sewer plant operators.

And now, after 1 1/2 years of planning, about 60 individuals, agencies and organizations have begun to meet regularly to draft a plan for the future of the Calleguas Creek Watershed--a swath of 343 square miles that includes four cities and nearly half the county residents.

The document will probably take years to complete but is expected to include a list of watershed problems to be attacked collectively--flooding, erosion, pollution of surface and ground water, loss of farmland, and decreasing animal and plant habitat as cities continue to envelop open space.

Committee participants will be asked to do their part to meet the final goals. And some--such as the municipal sewer plants now facing $50 million to $70 million in water quality improvements--will be forced by the state to toe the line.

An array of city, county and state agencies are paying for costly studies. The areawide approach is also supported by federal grants, and the Clinton administration has endorsed such efforts to look at river systems as a whole.

“This is the time for people to start thinking about their hopes and dreams for this watershed,” said Peter Brand, who manages watershed restoration for the Coastal Conservancy, a state agency that works to preserve and enhance natural resources.

Of all the struggles between people and nature, development and the environment, perhaps none touches so many nerves in Ventura County as the push-and-pull over how to manage the Calleguas watershed.

That is because the watershed committee is pondering not only the poisons that dirty stream waters and the sediment that settles to creek bottoms to cause overflows. It is also discussing land use issues that inevitably pit upstream against downstream, developers against environmentalists and the urban east county against the more rural west.

“The whole idea is not to point fingers. It’s persuasion instead of arm-twisting,” Brand said. “Right now we’re all on this sort of honeymoon period.”

Even in these early stages of polite and respectful discussion, however, the tension points are clear.

Participants know of the troubles similar watershed committees have had in studying the Santa Clara River and the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara County. The Santa Clara committee has struggled for four years because of the unwieldy diversity of interests in the 100-mile, two-county watershed. The Santa Ynez group foundered amid complaints that all interests were not properly considered.

“We’re walking on eggshells here, but it’s worth it,” said Catherine Tyrrell, assistant executive director at the state Regional Water Quality Control Board in Los Angeles, the key agency pushing the watershed effort.

Tyrrell headed a task force that drafted a Santa Monica Bay clean-up plan, and she said the committee’s work has led to new city standards in what restaurants and businesses dump into storm drains--and an increased accountability, from the top of that watershed to the bottom.

In the Calleguas watershed, the regional board could enforce strict new water laws by making sewer plants build multimillion-dollar additions. But instead it is meeting with city officials to talk about less costly alternatives that may make more sense in the long run.

“The regional board is the moving arm behind all of this,” said Carla Bard, a committee member and environmental activist. “Everybody would like to think they’re involved because of the goodness of their hearts, but the fact is that in most cases it requires a regulatory stick to assist the planning carrot.”

Enforcing federal clean-water laws, the regional water board can require cities to clean sewer plant discharges, force water sellers to treat water to higher standards and even search out polluters such as parks and golf courses that use too much fertilizer, and farmers whose pesticide-laden runoff sometimes tumbles from fields into creeks.

The committee’s overriding mandate, members said, is to balance all interests for the good of the environment while recognizing that money is limited.

At the mouth of the Calleguas watershed, stretching along three miles of oceanfront, Mugu Lagoon is one of Ventura County’s most precious natural gems.

It is also where the most prickly issues of the watershed--erosion, flooding, water quality and wildlife habitat--settle like toxic sediment from upstream.

One of the largest saltwater marshes in Southern California, the lagoon is a nursery for scores of fish and mammals, a home of such endangered birds as the American peregrine falcon, the California least tern, light-footed clapper rail and the California brown pelican.

Harbor seals still pup there. And birds flying migratory routes depend on its haven for food and rest.

But the wetland is as threatened as many of its creatures. Once 3,000 acres, it is now 1,100 acres, and studies indicate it could shrink to 700 acres by 2030.

Despite its degradation, Mugu Lagoon is still pristine by Southern California standards.

That is why many involved in the watershed effort see the health of Mugu Lagoon as a prime goal of their planning efforts.

“Even if we weren’t concerned about all the landowners up and down the watershed,” Brand said, “even if we weren’t concerned about the flooding, the reason a lot of people think this effort is really important is because they fear losing Mugu Lagoon.”