Santa Paula Branch Line Trail

* The true friends of agriculture in Ventura County should stand up and take notice. The agriculture industry is facing a proposal that could contribute to its demise.

The Santa Paula Branch Line Trail, a 32-mile swath proposed to be cut right through the middle of productive Santa Clara River Valley cropland, is being studied, considered seriously and even pursued heavily by the Ventura County Transportation Commission.

Under the guise of a “transportation corridor,” VCTC proposes to add to an existing public rail corridor a bike and hiking trail that would run from Montalvo to east of Piru. Such a trail would serve not as a true transportation corridor but as a recreational outlet for relatively few Ventura County residents.

Farmland is not a place for recreational activities. Agriculture is an industry. Farms are basically outdoor manufacturing plants. When was the last time you saw a bike trail through an auto factory or a hiking trail through an aerospace plant?

The VCTC proposal is frightening for local farmers and should be for everybody else. It would result in trespassing, erosion, vandalism, littering and a tremendous increase in liability for property owners and farmers alike.

Then there’s the loss of productive agricultural land. The trail is proposed on current public land but it’s only a 100-foot-wide right-of-way centered by the railroad tracks. Continued use of the rails for public railroad projects is not an issue.

However, letting people ride bikes and walk through such a narrow corridor is a grievous problem. For example, the first time someone smells something suspected to be pesticides and complains to the county agriculture commissioner, the law requires establishment of a 100-foot-wide buffer of nothing on both sides of the existing right of way.

This would amount to a loss of about 24 acres of privately owned farmland per trail mile--totaling more than 700 acres. If 700 acres of farmland were to be bulldozed in the middle of the Oxnard Plain, there would be a public outcry.

Agriculture remains one of Ventura County’s most vibrant and productive industries. We have a cultural and economic need to preserve our farming heritage. If residents of Ventura County indeed favor preservation of agricultural land, they need to become acquainted with this proposal and they must forward their concerns to the elected officials who govern VCTC. They need to learn the dates, times and locations of public hearings and then be heard.

JUDY MIKELS

Chair, Ventura County

Board of Supervisors