By Jim Hines
Welcome to the Ventura River Parkway, a 17-mile National Park Service designated national recreation trail (one of only two national recreation trails in Ventura County). The trail is used by walkers and bicyclists is paved and runs from the Pacific Ocean in Ventura to downtown Ojai.
The Sierra Club has had a long involvement in protecting the Ventura River and its Watershed since our initial lawsuit 25 years ago to remove stream crossings which impeded fish passage in the Upper Ventura river basin within the Los Padres National Forest.
The Sierra Club now works with Friends of the Ventura River which is governed by the 7-member Board of Ventura Citizens for Hillside Preservation (VCHP). I represent the Sierra Club on the board.
Land restoration projects along the Ventura River and in the Watershed are managed by two local land trusts. The river from Foster County Park to the Pacific Ocean is being restored by the Ventura Land Trust and Ojai Valley Land Conservancy is doing the same from Foster County Park to the National Forest.
Sierra Club is also part of the Matilija Coalition led by Surfrider Foundation whose major goal is the removal of the deadbeat Matilija Dam which should come down in 2035. Learn more at Surfrider’s website here: https://www.sbck.org/our-work/advocacy/ventura-river/
The dam constructed in the 1920s is silted up and no longer functions and impedes fish passage in Matilija Creek, a major tributary to the Ventura River. The Sierra Club is lobbying congress to have lower Matilija Creek designated as a national wild and scenic river in our congressional legislation via the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
“When Matilija Dam comes down, those resident rainbow trout that are up there now will slowly start to show that anadromous, steelhead life-history,” said Scott Lewis, fisheries biologist with Casitas Municipal Water District, which operates the Robles Fish Passage Facility on the Ventura River. That quote is from Perry Van Houten’s article in The Steelhead Story, written in 2021 in Ojai Magazine, available online.
The Sierra Club has regular meetings with the CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife staff supporting proposed state endangered species act protections for steelhead trout in southern California rivers, creeks and streams, which would protect critical fish habitat in the Ventura River, among others. My father would often speak of steelhead trout swimming upstream in the Ventura River to spawn and you could not see the bottom of the river because there were so many fish.
Recently the Sierra Club supported a successful request by the city of Ventura for a CalTrans grant of $5 million to re-pave, plant trees and install other amenities along the city of Ventura portion of the parkway.
At Friends of the Ventura River, we are paying $5,000 for new interpretive signage for the parkway in the city of Ventura and are working with the local designer of the project Pacific Coast Land Design on wording and photos for the signage which should be installed this Fall.
We have also met with CalTrans staff who are designing a new on/off ramp interchange on Highway 33 at Stanley Avenue in west Ventura. We are requesting a pedestrian overpass over the 33 freeway so that residents of west Ventura can safely access the Ventura River.
To keep apprised of events, register for project updates: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/fyh7yIu
The Ventura River is an important part of the Sierra Club Wild Ventura County campaign.