Much needed rain

The river received a much-needed rain this week. Ojai received over 4inches, and some locations in the mountains recorded almost 10 inches. Good news for farmers, whose wells ran dry sometime around July, forcing them to purchase water from Casitas Municipal Water District. Good news for the river too, as flows were dropping rapidly at the upper end of the 'live reach' near Casitas Springs.

These photos were taken at the San Antonio Creek confluence:

Sept 20, 2009


Oct 13, 2009


and Oct 14, 2009 following the rain.

In the news:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/oct/14/early-season-storm-soaks-county/
http://ovnblog.com/?p=1960

Blog Action Day

Today is 'Blog Action Day' - this year's theme: 'Climate Change'

http://www.blogactionday.org/

The Ventura Ecosystem project aims to educate local residents and decision makers about adaptation to climate change and implementing solutions to ensure a sustainable future. In the arid climate of Southern California, it's all about water...

Other posts relating to climate change

Savage Rapids Dam removed

On Oct 9, another dam was removed in Oregon: the the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River.

Water Watch and others worked for more than 2 decades to remove this 39-foot high, 500-foot long irrigation diversion dam. According to Water Watch, the dam has long been considered the biggest fish killer on the Rogue.

Dam removal was accomplished by constructing a coffer dam upstream to divert flows while the concrete dam was demolished. When the coffer dam was breached sediment was flushed naturally downstream. In this case, because of historic operations and limited storage the dam had trapped only 200,000 cubic yards . This volume is roughly equivalent to a 2-year sediment supply from the Rogue River. The reservoir sediments were found to consist of 71 percent sand, 27 percent gravel, and 2 percent silt and clay.

Project Benefits: Removing Savage Rapids Dam will provide important benefits for the Rogue River and local economies, including:

• 114,000 (estimated) additional adult salmon and steelhead in the Rogue River
• $5 million/year in additional economic activity for local economies
• Removal of a major barrier to fish passage and to boating on the Rogue River
• Permanent protection of significant streamflows in the Rogue River

Cost estimate: $40 milion, with the funds primarily coming from federal government.

Sediment Management: Natural transport

More Information:

http://www.waterwatch.org
http://www.usbr.gov/

Press:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oregon-dam10-2009oct10,0,4938332.story

Surfrider's roots

Around 50 people came out last week for our chapter meeting which marked the 25th anniversary of the Surfrider Foundation with a presentation by the organization's founder, Glen Henning:

In the news:

Surfrider Takes Off: The Visionary Surfers of 1984

Twenty-five years ago, Glenn Hening helped light a fire under surfers to get them to fight for the beaches and ocean they loved.

As one of the founders of The Surfrider Foundation the world's largest surfing-based environmental organization, he helped create a generation of activists who were passionate about preserving the places they surfed and the ocean at large.

"I want to give people a sense of where that passion came from and how the organization was put together and what we had to do for the first victory, said Hening, 58, of Oxnard. Those things came from the courage and determination one gains from being a surfer."

Paul Jenkin, environmental director of the Ventura County Surfrider chapter, which is hosting the event, said that kind of enthusiasm is needed.

"It's that kind of passion that gets people going," he said. "It's a very apathetic culture today."

Hening started the group with the idea of creating a way for surfers to respect each other and share their love of the sport.

more: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/oct/05/surfrider-co-founder-to-share-activism/

Surfers' Point funding back on track

The Federal Highway Administration today approved the use of the federal Transportation Enhancement (TE) grant for restoring the bike path and beach at Surfers' Point. This will allow the project to move forward, although groundbreaking will be delayed until early 2010.


'Based on the FHWA’s careful review of the project documents provided by both Caltrans and City of Ventura, and in response to the congressional inquiry by Congresswoman Lois Capps, attached is our agency decision letter with respect to the eligibility of the beach protection and erosion control components of the above-referenced Federal-aid highway project.

We request that Caltrans HQ and Caltrans District 7 facilitate the timely implementation of our decision, given the time sensitivity in the coastal permit conditions for the project. Thank you to both Caltrans and the City of Ventura for helping us respond to the Congressional Inquiry with a well-informed decision.'


Many thanks to Congresswoman Lois Capps, everyone who wrote letters, State Assemblyman Pedro Nava, and all the state and local staff and political representatives who weighed in on this!

Tsunami info

On Tuesday evening we had a small tsunami, or tidal wave, the result of an 8.0 earthquake in Samoa in the south Pacific.

Although the effect seemed unnoticeable here, someone in the harbor may have detected a change in water elevation of about a foot, with a period of around 15 minutes. A time-lapse camera may have been able to record the event.

Tide gauges around the pacific detected these 'tidal waves' as in this example from Hawaii. Because 'tidal waves' have such a long wavelength, they travel at high speed across the ocean - only 11 hours from Samoa to North America!

From Wikipedia: A tsunami (津波) (pronounced /(t)suːˈnɑːmi/) is a series of water waves (called a tsunami wave train^[1]) that is caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, such as an ocean. The original Japanese term literally translates as "harbor wave."

Pre-dawn sampling

For the past couple of years, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper has been studying the effects of algae on water quality within the Ventura River watershed. The general issue is outlined here - the main point being that dissolved oxygen drops to a minimum after a long night when algae and aquatic plants are not photosynthesizing...

Which is why we get up (way too early) to sample our monitoring sites before the sun comes up. This video illustrates how we do this in the dark:

Channelkeeper's Stream Team data is being utilized to develop a TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) program to address the 303(d) algae impairment listing for the Ventura River. Working in collaboration with UCSB researchers, Channelkeeper has produced a number of reports, which may be downloaded from their website here.

If you'd like to get involved please contact Ben at ben@sbck.org