Not A Drop of Water Conserved in Flood Control Planned for the Santa Clara River
pill arial,sans-serif;”>By Nina Danza, PE
This time next year El Nino will be a thing of the past and so will the water that could have been stored for sustaining population and our local environment. The rains are Ventura and Oxnard’s virtually only source of drinking water. Every technique we use to obtain water in the area is based on rains: from reservoirs, to infiltration basins for groundwater recharge. From low impact development, to wastewater reclamation. Even the wastewater originates from local groundwater before it is reclaimed for irrigation.
So why is water conservation missing from a flood control project now in progress on the Santa Clara River? That project, known as SCR3 (Santa Clara River Reach 3), will do only one thing: provide flood protection to an area on the south bank from about Hwy 101 to Victoria Ave. For $40 million there are concrete walls and earth levees and not one drop of water conserved.
Water resiliency is an extremely high priority in the state. The Oxnard groundwater basin is ranked in the state’s top 10 list as critically damaged and the county is mandated to prepare a sustainable groundwater management plan by next year. Is the SCR3 project integrated with that plan?
No new land needs to be bought at this time for water conservation. An enormous abandoned basin, already zoned for water storage, is not more than 10,000 feet upstream of Hwy 101. Additional large dry basins are in that immediate area. All of these existing landforms are waiting for the county to exercise foresight and take steps to solve the flood and water resources challenges collaboratively with key stakeholders.
Existing dry basin located along the Santa Clara River near Kings Canyon Dr in Riverpark
The project also fails to acknowledge water quality problems. Urban runoff is a poisonous soup of bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides and chemicals, and rushing it to the ocean means closed beaches and a dead marine environment. Just the latest beach closure occurred at Surfer’s Knoll on Dec. 23, 2015 due to unhealthful bacteria levels. Future beach closures will continue to occur until this and other projects start including robust treatment measures.
Flood control is no longer a viable stand-alone solution. It is fiscally irresponsible to omit urgent related benefits especially water conservation and water quality. Greener flood control engineering can provide both of these benefits along with plant and animal habitat and public recreation. The Watershed Protection District’s own mission is to provide ‘comprehensive long-range watershed planning’. Why is that mission not followed in the SCR3 flood control project?
A draft EIR for the SCR3 flood control project is open to public comment now until Jan 22. If you want sustainable environmental principles used, including a clean and more dependable water supply, fill out the comment form at vclevees.com.
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Nina Danza is a professional environmental engineer with over 25 years expertise in surface drainage issues. She is the Sierra Club advocate for long term environmental stewardship on the Santa Clara River. See, do, learn more with her at www.facebook.com/SantaClaraRiverConfluence
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One other thing that makes up the spreading grounds in the San Fernando Valley is that they plant it in bermuda grass. The grass takes up the excess nitrogen that may be in run-off water; therefore cleaning up the water.
1) Recharging existing aquifers will be a result of good rains.
2) The San Fernando Valley, as maligned as it has been, has spreading grounds to recharge existing ground water sources. Maybe Ventura could learn a lesson from that.