Ventura River

PFAS: Hiding in Plain Sight

November 1, 2022 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Hundreds of everyday products, from non-stick cooking pans to stain- and water-resistant clothing, are made today with highly toxic chemicals called per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. These chemicals are known to cause cancer, liver and kidney disease, reproductive issues, immunodeficiencies, and hormonal disruptions and in June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an updated health advisory stating that there are no safe levels of PFAS in drinking water. However, these toxic substances are found in waterways throughout the United States.

PFAS are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they take thousands of years to break down. PFAS molecules have a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms. Because the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest, these chemicals do not easily degrade, making them biopersistent, or able to remain in organisms indefinitely without breaking down. They are also bioaccumulative, meaning that they build up over time in ever-increasing levels in people, wildlife, and the environment.

Because of their widespread use, release, and disposal over decades, PFAS are found virtually everywhere: in the atmosphere, the deep ocean, and even the human body. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website says that the agency has found PFAS in the blood of nearly everyone it has tested for them.

In the summer of 2022, the Waterkeeper Alliance and environmental engineering firm, Cyclopure, Inc., launched a monitoring project. During the months of May, June, and July, 113 Waterkeeper groups tested primary waterways in their jurisdictions. They collected water samples from two locations in their respective waterways, one upstream and one downstream of a potential source of PFAS contamination. A shocking 83% of these waterways were contaminated, with at least one PFAS compound detected in 95 of the 114 waterways sampled.

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper participated in the study by collecting and submitting water samples from the Ventura River, both upstream and downstream of the Ojai Valley Sanitation District’s Treatment facility, which discharges effluent into the river just south of Foster Park. Our samples both revealed PFAS contamination, with higher concentrations below the wastewater treatment facility.

The results of this research project demonstrate just how much more needs to be done to protect the health and safety of communities and ecosystems across the nation. We join the Waterkeeper Alliance in urging Environmental Protection Agency and lawmakers to take action to monitor waterways, clean up existing contamination, adopt standards for eliminating pollution, and enforce those standards.

Learn more about PFAS and read the full report here: https://waterkeeper.org/pfas/

Why Flowing Water in the Ventura River is Worth Fighting For

August 30, 2022 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

[En Español]

Water is the lifeblood of coastal California. It supplies drinking water for communities, fuels agricultural production, and sustains waterways and the species that depend on them. However, creeks, streams, and rivers along our coast are drying up more due to increasing pressures from climate change, expanded urban development, and irrigated agricultural lands. California’s waterways are indicators. As they dry up, entire downstream ecosystems collapse, and these dusty streambeds alert us to a lack of sustainable management.

Why should we be concerned the Ventura River is being pumped dry?

We rely on the Ventura River as a primary source of drinking water. The Ventura River and its groundwater basins provide all of the water used in the Ojai Basin and the Ventura River valley. When the river goes dry, it indicates that water usage is not sustainable and that we are exceeding the capacity of our resources and living dangerously beyond our means as we face a more arid future.

Wildlife suffers when waterways like the Ventura River go dry. Streams, creeks, and rivers are hotspots for freshwater biodiversity, providing habitat for birds, insects, fish, amphibians, invertebrates, and mammals. Aquatic organisms rely on water for their oxygen. Reduced flows and rising water temperatures decrease dissolved oxygen levels and can result in wildlife asphyxiation. Ultimately, as flows stop, entire ecosystems collapse and once vital streambeds become silent.

The Ventura River provides essential access to nature for hundreds of community members each week. If you visit Foster Park or any of the Ventura River’s swimming holes and picnic areas on a weekend, you’ll see entire families splashing and enjoying time outdoors together and people of all ages and ethnicities exploring the wilderness in their own backyard. The Ventura River’s flowing waters are a valuable public resource that provide recreational opportunities and a place for every member of our community to connect with nature.

When flows cease, histories evaporate. The Ventura River was a source of life and abundance to the indigenous people who lived, hunted, and gathered along its banks and it remains a sacred landmark to the Chumash community today. Keeping the river alive preserves important narratives.

When the creeks, streams, and rivers in our backyard are pumped dry, it means that our resources are not being managed responsibly. Channelkeeper continues to speak on the Ventura River’s behalf and leverage the law to demand sustainable management of our water resources. There is enough water to satisfy the needs of people and sustain nature if managed sustainably. By protecting vital water resources, we can ensure water security for wildlife and people for generations to come.

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper has advocated on the Ventura River’s behalf for over twenty years to stop the City of Ventura from pumping it dry and establish flow thresholds to ensure the river’s health and ecological richness.

It’s Not About a Fish

March 6, 2020 by Ben Pitterle

I arrived at work this morning to a voicemail on my phone. An angry caller shouted from the recording: “I’m 67-years old, and I’ve worked in there [Thatcher Creek] since my late teens. I’ve never seen one,” said the caller, referring to endangered steelhead trout. “We’re lucky if we even have water in Thatcher Creek.”

The caller was referring to Channelkeeper’s lawsuit, which the organization filed in 2014 in an attempt to compel the State Water Resources Control Board to analyze the City of Ventura’s use of water from the Ventura River and to intervene to prevent the City from completely drying up the River by pumping too much water from its Foster Park well field.

It’s worth noting that various government agencies brought this problem to the City’s attention decades ago, but the City chose to ignore, or worse, deliberately evade remedies. Channelkeeper’s lawsuit focused solely on the City’s water use because of its disproportionate impact on the river, but the City chose to pull every other water right holder in the Ventura River watershed into our lawsuit to protect and prioritize its water right.

Some community members, including the gentleman that left the voicemail, are frustrated because the City of Ventura opted to challenge their water rights, and view Channelkeeper’s efforts as misguidedly focused on a single species of fish, the endangered steelhead trout, which is currently struggling for survival in the Ojai and Ventura River valleys.

Channelkeeper’s efforts in the Ventura River watershed are about protecting much more than steelhead, but it’s easy to understand why so much attention is placed on the beleaguered species. One of the reasons that Southern Steelhead are endangered is that they require high quality habitat, which is hard to find these days. That means that if a river is good enough for steelhead, it’s probably good enough for everything else that lives there as well. So, when you protect steelhead, you protect an entire ecosystem. As a keystone indicator species, steelhead deserve the attention they garner.

Another reason that steelhead are so famous is that many of our environmental laws are designed to prioritize protection of endangered species. Many of our nation’s protected and cherished open spaces were established in one way or another to protect sensitive keystone species. But the Ventura River is much more than a haven for an endangered fish.

The Ventura River is the wilderness in our own backyard. It’s an entire interdependent ecosystem of birds, fish, mammals, and more that existed for millions of years before humans inhabited the area. That is something worth protecting. To the first humans that lived here, the Ventura River was a sacred source of life and abundance. It remains so to those people today, and that too is worth protecting.

For several generations in the not so distant past, the Ventura River was a cherished source of sustenance and recreation. Each street off Ventura Avenue had its own dirt trail at the end of it leading down to the river, where the community accessed swimming holes and fishing spots, each with its own name, names now largely forgotten. But the river still provides recreational opportunities and local access to nature for thousands of community members today, and that too is worth protecting.

The Ventura River is also a source of drinking water, which we also need to protect. Whether diverted from the surface or pumped from just beneath it, the river and its groundwater basins provide all of the water used in the Ojai Basin and the Ventura River valley. When the river goes dry, it’s a canary in the coal mine telling us that we are exceeding the capacity of our resources, living beyond our means, and spending over-budget in ways that are detrimental and unsustainable. A thriving river means a sustainable future, and that is worthy of protection.

The Ventura River is also our legacy. It’s the home that we will pass on to our children. It’s our own backyard. In this day and age, for all the attention placed on global environmental problems we have no means to control, we can control what we do in our own backyard. We can choose to protect it. If we don’t, who will?

That’s why Channelkeeper is taking a stand for the Ventura River. It’s not just about a fish.

City of Ventura Initiates Adjunction of Water Rights in the Ventura Watershed

September 30, 2019 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

For 20 years, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper has been a watchdog and advocate for the protection, restoration and sustainable management of the Ventura River and its groundwater. We understand there are questions and concerns about the City’s initiative to commence an adjudication in response to our long-fought efforts to secure a remedy to the City’s excessive pumping of water from the River at Foster Park, which we specifically targeted as detrimental to key ecological functions and community uses of the river.

The City of San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper are pleased to announce an interim settlement in the lawsuit regarding the pumping and diversion of water from the Ventura River Watershed. Both Channelkeeper and the City are dedicated to ensuring the protection of this finite water source and the habitat and species that rely on it while providing water now and for the future. This collaborative agreement brings us another step closer towards this goal.

Click here to read the full press release.