Date Change: April 14 Evening Council Meeting to Focus on Steelhead.
Please remark your calendars. The next meeting of the Watershed Council will be on Thursday, April 14, 2015. The date had to be changed from April 9 because it conflicted with a related meeting. My apologies for any inconvenience.
This will be an evening meeting, from 6:00-8:30 pm, at the Oak View Community Center, 18 Valley Rd., Oak View. The meeting will be devoted to presentations and discussions about the endangered southern California steelhead trout and related management issues in the watershed. See section “3.6.2 Steelhead” of the Ventura River Watershed Management Plan for background information. An agenda is forthcoming.
Water in Lower Ventura River Sometimes Disappearing and
Reappearing Nightly
At the March 5, 2015 Council meeting, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper presented a summary of results from their Ventura River continuous monitoring program. The presentation included depictions of dissolved oxygen data collected throughout the watershed in 2013 and 2014 as well as a time-lapse video of fluctuations in water level in the lower river near Main Street.
Channelkeeper aligned the time-lapse video with an animation of water depth sensor data. Both show daily mid-morning pulses in river flows followed by a period of declining flow levels through each evening. (The video goes dark at night, indicated also by the dark bars on the graph above the video.) On many days, the river went totally dry at the location. Channelkeeper indicated that on at least one occasion, the pulses in flow aligned with the timing of irrigation runoff observed at adjacent agricultural facilities.
During their presentation Channelkeeper also raised the question of why base flows could be so low (and sometimes non-existent) given the constant discharge of effluent upstream at the Ojai Valley Sanitary District Treatment Plant.
New “Graywater Standard Plan” Simplifies the Permitting of Graywater Systems that go beyond “Laundry to Landscape”
Graywater – water from washing machines, bathroom sinks, showers, and bathtubs – is a fairly clean and valuable source of water for reuse, such as for irrigation.
“Laundry to landscape” graywater systems that adhere to basic guidelines have been allowed without a building permit in Ventura County for a number of years. The Ventura County Building and Safety Division has outlined the basic requirements for these systems in their “GW-1″ handout.
The county’s Building and Safety Division has just released a “GW-2” handout, which outlines a “Graywater Standard Plan” for “simple” residential systems that use graywater from sources beyond washing machines and will be discharging 250 gallons of graywater or less per day.
A permit is required for these simple systems, but the Graywater Standard Plan provides recommendations along with diagrams intended to simplify the process. The total cost for a permit for a simple graywater system is $134.00. Those systems that will discharge more than 250 gallons a day, called “complex” systems, involve more technical design and review. In all cases, graywater must be discharged in a subsurface irrigation system.
Currently, the GW-2 Graywater Standard Plan is only applicable in Ventura County unincorporated areas, but the county is hoping that local cities will adopt GW-2 in their jurisdictions, as was done with GW-1.
We are very fortunate that the Ventura County Building and Safety Division is an active advocate of safe graywater system installations. They have developed educational displays and regularly hold workshops on how to install graywater systems.
March and April Graywater Educational Events
The Ojai Valley Green Coalition is hosting a series of events this spring promoting graywater. At their Community Potluck on March 27 there will be a “How-To Laundry-to-Landscape” presentation; on March 28, a Graywater Home Tour is being offered; and on April 25 they are hosting a Graywater Do-it-Yourself Workshop. For details see www.ojaivalleygreencoalition.org or call 805/669-8445. Flier.
March 21 Estuary Cleanup
Ventura Hillside Conservancy’s (VHC) monthly third Saturday river cleanup will be on March 21, 2015 from 9 am to noon. Volunteers meet next to the Main St. Bridge along the bike path. Wear pants, long sleeves, sturdy shoes. Tools and water are provided. These monthly river cleanups have resulted in a great increase in the native plants and animals on VHC’s Willoughby Preserve.
March 29 Dune Restoration Day
Join Surfrider for a workday at Surfer’s Point on Saturday, March 29, 2015 from 9 am to 11 am to work on the dune restoration project.
Lake Casitas Storage Graph
The California Department of Water Resources maintains a website that tracks reservoir storage levels. A link to this site has been added to the Council’s website under the “Data” menu. Note that the time period of the graph can be adjusted at the bottom of the page. The graph below shows that the last time the lake was near its capacity (254,000 acre-feet) was in the spring of 2011.
