(Left to right) Col. Alex Dornstauder, Mr. Gary Ball (Ventura County Resource Conservation District) and Mr. David Heilig (Natural Resources Conservation Service) make official the Memorandum of Agreement among the agencies that will address environmental activities in the Calleguas Creek watershed.

Coordination of environmental activities in Ventura County’s Calleguas Creek watershed took a significant step forward with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) at the Corps’ Los Angeles District Headquarters. The agreement among resource agencies allows the construction of small-scale voluntary conservation projects that are designed to control erosion and sedimentation, to improve water quality and to enhance the natural resource functions and values of surrounding sensitive (predominantly wetland and riparian) habitat.

Mr. Gary Ball, president of the Ventura County Resource Conservation District (VCRCD), and Mr. David Heilig for Field Operations, Assistant State Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), joined LA District Engineer Col. Alex Dornstauder in signing the agreement.

“The MOA is significant as it demonstrates that the stakeholders (including agencies) recognize the magnitude of the water quality and flood control problems within this watershed and are willing to work collectively towards a mutually-beneficial set of solutions,” said John Markham, the Corps’ project manager for the agreement. “Rehabilitation of this system is a technically and logistically difficult effort. It will continue to require the coordination of landowners, concerned citizens, scientists and engineers for years to come. This is a brave step in the right direction.”
 
The agreement is modeled after the Partners in Restoration Program that the Corps, the Coastal San Luis Resource Conservation District, and the NRCS signed in 2002 to address similar issues in the Morro Bay watershed.  NRCS and Sustainable Conservation, a non-profit organization in San Francisco, started the Partners in Restoration Program with the successful implementation of a permit coordination program in the Elkhorn Slough watershed in 1998.

Heilig noted “This is the beginning of a coordinated effort to accelerate the application of sound land treatment practices by private landowners for the protection and restoration of natural resources in the watershed.  We certainly appreciate the cooperative spirit of this agreement and look forward to assisting in implementation of these projects with the Resource Conservation District and their cooperators.”

Ventura County’s Ball concurred that the memorandum would provide major future benefits to the creek’s watershed. “This agreement is the result of a lot of effort and a good working partnership between the Army Corps, NRCS and the VCRCD,” he said. “The program will be a win, win, win situation benefiting agencies, landowners and natural resources.  A lot more work will be accomplished because of this simplified process.”

The Calleguas Creek MOA addresses activities that may require a Corps Nationwide Permit in order to reduce channel degradation, improve water quality and enhance habitat for fish, wildlife and other aquatic animals. Those activities will often include installing native vegetation, constructing grade stabilizers, removing accumulated sediment, diverting agricultural runoff into grass-lined bio-swales, increasing channel roughness to reduce scouring, and constructing basins to reduce sediment or debris load, among others.

The Calleguas Creek watershed encompasses about 341 square miles in southern Ventura County. It is one of the most heavily-impaired watersheds in California, and is under a federal consent decree to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads for nutrients, salts, toxicity, metals, historic pesticides and PCBs and bacteria.