Water Diversion Harms Endangered Species, People’s River Use
Mati Waiya, Wishtoyo Foundation, (805) 794-1248 Jason Weiner, Ventura Coastkeeper, (805) 823-3301 Cameron Yee, CAUSE, (805) 658-0810 John Buse, Center for Biological Diversity, (323) 533-4416
Ventura Coastkeeper
11/13/2013
VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.— Public-interest groups filed a complaint today with the State Water Resources Control Board asking the board to protect the Santa Clara River’s waters and wildlife by considering actions to balance water diversions at the Vern Freeman Diversion Dam with public trust and community needs. The dam, owned and operated by United Water Conservation District, is a primary cause of the sharp decline of the Santa Clara River’s ecosystem.
Implementation of economically and technically feasible diversion, transport, storage and infiltration solutions, combined with water-efficiency measures and reclamation incentives, will allow United to divert and use water reasonably and legally while protecting in-stream ecological, recreational and cultural uses.
“United’s longstanding disregard for implementing feasible solutions that would allow it to continue its historic average annual diversion while protecting the Santa Clara’s public trust resources demonstrates that the communities of Oxnard, Saticoy, El Rio, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru, and Ventura have been unnecessarily deprived of the benefits a live Santa Clara has to offer,” said Jason Weiner, staff attorney for Wishtoyo and its Ventura Coastkeeper Program.
United’s diversion, approximately 10.5 miles from the coast, takes almost all of the water flow from the Santa Clara River, causing a sharp decline in the river’s endangered steelhead trout. This water removal also harms native and endangered birds, riparian vegetation, and other wildlife including Pacific lamprey and southwestern pond turtles.
The diversion also hinders fishing, kayaking, summer swimming and inner-tubing. Chumash Native American cultural utilization of the Santa Clara and its naturalresources are impeded, and the river’s communities, which rely on a live and accessible Santa Clara, also suffer proportionately from the water draw.
“CAUSE believes that the youth and families in the communities of the Santa Clara River Valley have been unjustly deprived of the Santa Clara’s environmental, recreational, and socioeconomic assets that are required to be held in trust by the state for their benefit,” said Cameron Yee, staff researcher and community organizing director at CAUSE.
The public trust doctrine establishes that the waters and wildlife of the state belong to its people, and that the state acts as a trustee to manage and protect these resources and their public uses for its people’s benefit. Thus the Water Board has a continuing affirmative duty to protect public trust resources associated with the Santa Clara River whenever feasible, as well as the authority to reconsider the terms and conditions of United’s water rights — its license and permit — to protect those resources.
“Steelhead used to run in great abundance on the Santa Clara, but are now in danger of extinction,” said John Buse, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These fish are public trust resources that need access to the good habitat in the river’s tributaries, including Sespe, Piru and Santa Paula creeks.”
“It is the birthright of the Chumash, and all of the Santa Clara’s residents, to have a healthy river system. The Santa Clara lives and breathes inside of all of us and for us. United’s extraction of water without doing all it can to protect the river is extracting life from our communities,” said Mati Waiya, Chumash ceremonial elder of the Saticoy Turtle Clan and Wishtoyo’s executive director.
The Wishtoyo Foundation, its Ventura Coastkeeper Program, Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the complaint.
Communications Consultant Lola Dvorak supports CCKA’s strategic communications by helping waterkeepers tell their stories.
