State Grant Approved for 2 Santa Clara River Projects

SANTA PAULA — A $750,000 state grant approved Friday will clear the way for what one local group has called the most significant environmental project ever on the Santa Clara River.

The money should also help farmers and landowners protect property subject to potentially devastating floods.

The grant, approved by the California Coastal Conservancy, will pay for two flood-control and wildlife habitat restoration projects near Santa Paula, including the acquisition of more than 50 acres of riverbank.

“I would say it’s the largest ever environmental project on the Santa Clara River,” said Ron Bottorff, chairman of the Friends of the Santa Clara River. “It’s probably the most extensive effort on a broad scale to show that these things can work on a large river.”

The 85-mile-long Santa Clara is considered to be the last large free-flowing river in Southern California, draining an area the size of Delaware--about 1,600 square miles.

The grant consists of two separate--but related--projects.

Beginning next summer, about $500,000 will be spent on creating “living fences” of willows, cottonwoods and sycamore trees to stabilize the riverbank at three sites about 1 1/2 miles west of Santa Paula, said Dick Wayman, conservancy spokesman.

The demonstration projects are intended to show how flood damage and erosion control can be reduced using so-called “biotechnical” methods that are cheaper, quicker and more environmentally benign than lining the river with concrete.

Floods have caused significant losses of property along the river, including about 500 acres of farmland at one of the demonstration sites in the winter of 1994-95, Wayman said.

“A lot of farmers have had their banks washed away and right now they’re having a hard time getting permits to replace their banks,” Bottorff said. “This is a way for the Fish and Wildlife Service to approve a method of bank protection that is environmentally OK.”

Property owners will share some of the projects’ costs and maintain the facilities for at least 10 years.

Another $250,000 of the grant will be spent to purchase 51 acres of ranchland outright and option an additional 162 acres, about 2 1/2 miles east of Santa Paula.

Habitat along the river will also be restored there and a so-called “mitigation bank” will be set up in 1999 to help property owners obtain permits to construct flood-control facilities.

Essentially, a property owner will pay a fee that will be pooled with other money for habitat restoration to offset the environmental impact of the flood-control work.

The state grant is part of the Santa Clara River Enhancement and Management Plan, a joint effort between about 25 government agencies, property owners and other interested parties that began in 1991. The purpose of the plan is to balance the conflicting interests of developers, farmers, environmentalists and others that use the river.

State Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who urged approval of the grant, described the river as a “treasure to be preserved and enhanced to the best of our abilities.”

“This project . . . will serve as an impetus to continue the crucial watershed planning effort,” he said.