Community | 2019: Channel Islands -Harmful Neglect of the Canal in less than a Year

By Audrey Keller

It’s snow-chilled air out along the water today and we had a very high tide at about 10am. Unfortunately for our first flush* with over an inch of rain which we experienced yesterday, the State of California Lab (LARWQB) and our own City Lab (Public Works), weren’t ready to provide lab services or support for our harbor’s water quality testing. We’re learning the hard way that these big entities are slow to get forward motion, and being 100% dependent on them certainly adds to our CINC team’s frustrations about water quality and management of the State required water testing.

I’ve been out this morning to record the continued neglect by the property owners of the canal CenterPoint Energy (CPE) and the power plant NRG parent/GEN On subsidiary (all publicly-traded). We must bring pressure on these business leaders to clean-up the canal. Our CINC/MAC team’s calls and emails have gone ignored. The photos I have attached, document and compare the floating debris pile from January 2019 through today, which appears to have DOUBLED IN SIZE. It’s so thick, birds are standing on top of plastic buckets, couch cushions, logs and anything that floats.

Shouldn’t the City of Oxnard or the County of Ventura Supervisors have jurisdiction over this property, requiring a clean-up or taking charge of a clean-up? What authority does the LARWQB (LA Regional Water Quality Control Board) have over corporations that allow pollution to negatively impact a harbor, the bird life and sea creatures? Which public-serving entity or publicly-traded company’s board members will pick up the shovel (or a pen) and make sure this canal gets cleaned up?

Can you be impactful? Yes, every single vote and letter to our civic leaders does matter, especially now. It is election season and we know the local candidates are all looking for a ‘project’. Public opinion and bad press matters to media sensitive publicly-traded companies, even if they are out-of-state entities sharing a Texas address. Please help CINC shine a light on this neglected, polluted canal.

Since I posted about the canal on Nov. 29th and included the photo of the trash filled, polluted canal, CPE hired a new law firm that apparently specializes in ecological issues. We also believe the canal is for sale again – posted on a commercial site.

On Dec. 12th, CPE had a new team of attorneys out on a walking tour in Westport of the canal and the fish dam, where my photo was taken. For clarification, the fish dam is where the Edison Canal joins the northern harbor canal in Westport.

On Dec. 17th, CPE contacted City Special Districts Staff Jeri Cooper to advise her, that CPE would be going out to bid on cleaning the canal.

CINC/MAC will continue to educate the community and have conversations with government entities and photographs to document the trash pollution clean-up or lack thereof. We are hoping for positive action by CPE as a show of being good stewards of the canal and caring for the total health of the whole harbor.

CINC/MAC is continuing the communications efforts with every public official we can to share the story of our beautiful recreational harbor and the devastation caused directly by the cooling pumps shut down at the NRG Power Plant in 2018.