Monday, December 18, 2023

Watershed Council Visits Dam

On December 14, 2023, the Ventura River Watershed Council featured the Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project (MDERP).  This is the biggest project currently underway in the watershed and regular updates have been provided in this public forum over the years.  The meeting included a short presentation and discussion in the Oak View Community Center followed by a guided tour of the dam and surrounds.  The presentation and past meetings can be found here: https://venturawatershed.org/past-meetings

Ventura County has initiated the CEQA environmental review process for the updated plan for dam removal.  Scoping comments are accepted until December 20 at the link above. This meeting gave people an opportunity to see the dam up close and ask questions about planning for the removal of this obsolete structure on the Ventura River.  


Project engineer Kirk Norman presents an overview of the project 

Ventura County biologist and CEQA lead Pam Lindsey discusses Matilija Dam

Ventura County biologist and CEQA lead Pam Lindsey discusses Matilija Dam

Matilija Coalition coordinator Paul Jenkin at Matilija Dam
















Friday, December 8, 2023

Watershed Education

 

OjaiValleyNews.com

For more than a decade, Once Upon a Watershed has provided environmental education to local schools.  The program introduces our watershed to hundreds of students every year both in the classroom and field trips along the river.  This originated from "Once upon a Wetland"  engaging students in hands-on restoration at the Ojai Meadows Preserve and featured in Watershed Revolution.  This locally produced film was aired nationwide on PBS. 

The current program is housed under The CREW, which has secured a permit from County government to take groups of students and others up to the obsolete Matilija Dam.

The tours also help demonstrate why the dam, located on 400 acres owned by the County of Ventura, needs to come down. “The single most important thing for the health of the Ventura River watershed is to remove Matilija Dam,” White said.

Despite the Ventura County Board of Supervisors approving the removal of the dam in 1998, said White, “the fact that we’re still here 25 years later looking at this big slab of concrete is somewhat frustrating.”

Not only does the dam block sediment from moving downstream and replenishing the beaches, it blocks passage of endangered southern steelhead, White told students.

What’s more, sediment backfilling the dam has tailed back so far that, in places, it’s actually made the creek higher than the access road into the canyon. “So whenever there is a flood the road gets taken out,” White said, “and that’s problematic for the people who are living in Matilija Canyon, because it’s one road in and out.” During January’s heavy downpours, residents had to be flown in and out of the canyon by helicopter.

Nearly all the public schools Once Upon a Watershed works with are Title 1 schools, “which indicates they’re in a disadvantaged or low income community,” said White, who takes fourth-, fifth- and six-graders to different places in the watershed. “We’re based in Ojai and so we run programs primarily in the Ventura River watershed.”

Once Upon a Watershed is funded by grants and operates on an annual budget of approximately $100,000, White said. OVS has been highly supportive of the program, he added.

“It’s such an important thing for young people to understand where our water comes from,” said sixth-grade teacher Ryan Lang, who grew up in Matilija Canyon and still resides there.


Once Upon a Watershed website features an interactive image map


Link to: 

Once Upon a Watershed mural

Watershed Revolution film 

Oak Grove School - Sixth Grade Trip to the Dam


On this Blog:

Watershed Revolution

Once Upon a Watershed

The Story of Our River

Salmon Run 2016

Ojai Meadows Preserve

Matilija Dam Student video - Merito Foundation program




In the News:

Lessons at the Dam, by Perry Van Houten, Ojai Valley News,  Nov 9, 2023 Updated Nov 13, 2023   

Friday, December 1, 2023

Headwaters to Ocean (H2O) Conference

The California Shore and Beach Preservation Association (CSBPA) and Beach Erosion Authority for Clean Oceans and Nourishment (BEACON) organized the 2023 Headwaters to Ocean (H2O) Conference.  This was the first big in-person gathering of professionals involved in watershed and coastal  health, restoration, and management since the COVID pandemic.

On Tuesday November 28, BEACON convened their science advisory panel and stakeholders for a morning meeting followed by lunch and guided tour of the Surfers' Point Managed Shoreline Retreat Project.  

H2O was a two day conference held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Ventura Beach on November 29-30. 

The H2O conference serves as a catalyst for collaboration across various fields, industries, institutions, and organizations united by their shared interests in topics related to water, oceans, coastal environments, sediment management, resilience, and the intersections between terrestrial and marine systems.  

A session on Surfers' Point included presentations from Paul Jenkin, Surfrider Foundation, Bob Battalio, ESA, Dave Hubbard, CRC, and Kiki Patsch, CSUCI.  The talks covered the history, engineering, dunes, and monitoring.



Paul Jenkin presented the lunchtime plenary talk, "A Lifetime of Coastal Activism; A Retrospective" or "Headwaters 2 Ocean; Ventura River, a Case Study"






H2O Conference Website: https://asbpa.org/2023/08/15/h2o-2023-conference/