New Watershed Map Atlas!
The Watered Council’s website now features a Map Atlas (!) – a series of downloadable pdf maps illustrating various watershed features. We are creating these maps as part of characterizing the watershed for our Watershed Management Plan, and also out of recognition that people really like seeing quick graphic snapshots of data – rather than only reading narrative in reports. This is just the beginning of the atlas. So keep checking back for new additions. If you have any comments or feedback on the maps, or something you’d like to see conveyed spatially, please let us know. Also, if any data needs correcting, please let us know that as well.
On Trees & Algae
Al Leydecker likes to ponder the Ventura River, and after 12 years of doing research, he’s come to be pretty familiar with what the river looks like and how it behaves. On a recent Ventura River water sampling day with Santa Barbara Channelkeeper’s Ventura Stream Team, he and others were impressed by how fast trees and riparian brush grow in the Ventura River bottom and wondered how much that growth was influenced by rainfall and flood flows and other factors.
So Al did some investigation and wrote this article – which includes some pretty amazing photos – on the topic.
Al Leydecker is a PhD biologist who has served as a technical advisor for the Stream Team.
Middle San Antonio Creek: Upper photo Sept. 2009, lower Apr. 2013.
June 6 Watershed Council Meeting
The Watershed Council meets next Thursday, June 6, from 9:00 – 11:30 am (note: this is a slightly different time than previously announced), in the Topping Room of the EP Foster Library, 651 E. Main St., Ventura.
One of the agenda items is approval of our Interim List of Projects & Programs – Tier 1 and Tier 2 (for our Watershed Management Plan), as well as approval of the subset of this list for inclusion in the countywide Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP) update. The most important issue for our meeting on Thursday is the IRWMP projects, as we need to hand these over to Lynn Rodriguez who is writing the IRWMP update. Lynn may include specific projects in the update, or she may just include general project categories, so I’ve organized them both ways. The Interim List of Projects & Programs will be a working list – a list we’ll work with and make adjustments to in the course of developing the Watershed Management Plan. Here are those lists:
IRWMP Projects
Interim List of Projects & Programs – Tier 1
Interim List of Projects & Programs – Tier 2
Also on the agenda, Cinnamon McIntosh with Casitas Municipal Water District and Katie Haldeman with the Resource Conservation District will each provide presentations on the free irrigation efficiency audit/evaluation programs their districts offer. Services are available for farms, schools and other large landscapes, hobby orchards, and commercial and residential landscapes. Equipment rebates and/or cost shares are offered as part of the programs. Use of these free programs offers one of our most powerful ways of reducing water demand in the watershed, and efficient irrigation also reduces the amount of fertilizer (nutrients) reaching our groundwater and surface water. We should all be familiar with the programs so we can help promote use of them.
Changes to the Council’s Governance Charter and membership, and to the WMP’s Objectives are on the agenda for approval. Darrell Siegrist will discuss and get input on the County Environmental Health Division’s idea to pursue a special study, as allowed for in the Algae TMDL, to narrow down our understanding of the contribution of septic systems to the nutrient impairment of the watershed’s surface water. And we’ll hear the latest Watersheds Coalition of Ventura County news from Lynn Rodriguez, and get a report on the WEAP Model trainings held here in May.
Meeting Agenda
Proposed Changes to Governance Charter
Proposed Changes to our Objectives (for the Watershed Management Plan)
RCD Mobile Irrigation Lab Flier
Septic System Special Study Proposal
Link to Casitas MWD’s Landscape Irrigation Audit Information
June 8 Picnic at the River
Ventura Hillsides Conservancy and Friends of the River are once again hosting a community picnic on the Ventura River on June 8, 2013, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. The event will be held on the Conservancy’s property in the Ventura River, south of the Main Street Bridge.
This year’s event will focus on exploring the Ventura River on the Ventura Hillside Conservancy’s (VHC) new Willoughby Preserve. The public is invited to take a self-guided tour to witness first-hand the progress made in restoring the property over the past year. Informational exhibits will be stationed at areas throughout the preserve extolling the various benefits of the parkway plan. The theme of the event has been “reconnecting Ventura to the river in our backyard” and visitors can take advantage of new trail connections between the Ventura River Trail and Emma Wood State Beach.
More information can be found on VHC’s website.