Ojai Meadows Preserve—Celebrating 25 Years of Conservation!

Art Vander’s journey with OVLC began serendipitously in 2003 with the acquisition of the Ventura River Preserve (VRP). Attending the inaugural guided hike of the VRP led by Jim Engel, then Executive Director, ignited Art’s passion for OVLC’s mission. As one of OVLC’s earliest docents, Art has become a cherished figure among our community, and he’s revered throughout the valley as one of Ojai’s Living Treasures for his involvement with several organizations. Renowned for his captivating tours of the Ojai Meadows Preserve (OMP), Art’s expertise brings the preserve’s story to life like no other. As we celebrate 25 years since the acquisition of the OMP, join us for an interview with Art and Preserve Manager Linda Wilkin as they explore the rich history and significance of the Ojai Meadows Preserve.

Hi, Art! Before we jump into talking about OVLC, can you tell me a bit about yourself?

My career was as a physiologist. I knew by my senior year of medical school that I loved physiology and studying how the body works. After my senior year I took a one-year internship in internal medicine in New York City, but I already had a job offer at the University of Michigan, where I went to medical school. I taught at the University of Michigan for thirty-five years. My specialty was kidney function and how they maintain salt and water in the body. I did a lot of work on stress research, infectious disease responses, and so on. During that time, I also wrote a few textbooks, including one on human physiology for undergrads. What was unique about that big textbook is that it required no knowledge of science to comprehend! The book taught chemistry and physics as it went along. Then I retired, and over the next five years I continued to write textbooks. My three colleagues and I eventually decided that we had enough, as textbook writing required revising every three years. So, we found three other good physiologists to maintain the book. It’s actually on its 18th edition and is still used today. It’s called Vander’s Human Physiology.

In 2000, I decided to go cold turkey and that’s when my life was determined by strange pieces of luck. I am an obsessive collector of travel literature. At the time, my wife Judy and I would take a month every winter to go hiking because we loved it so much. One day I went into my files and found an article from around ten years earlier titled, “Three Luxury Spas in Southern California.” We usually don’t go to spas, luxury or not, but one of them mentioned this little town called Ojai. I told Judy that spas have to be in beautiful places, and on that basis, we decided we would rent a place in Ojai for a month.

Talk about strange things! When we went on the internet to search for Ojai, the first search result was about contra dancing in Ojai. Many people don’t know what contra dancing is, but Judy and I just adore it. It’s the Americanized version of English country line dancing. The second topic to pop up was hiking in Ojai. The third one, which ended up being false, is Ojai as Shangri-La. The urban myth was that Ojai was used in the film Lost Horizons. Frank Hopper, who was the director, shot in Ojai for about twenty-four hours, but none of the footage ever made it into the film.

My wife Judy is two things: she is a ethnomusicologist (she studied Native American music) and a composer. The Ojai Music Festival was also part of the conspiracy to get us out here. When we first heard there was a music festival, we sort of turned our noses up at it because we thought Ann Arbor would have more visiting world-class classical musicians between the two towns. We said, “What could this little tiny town have to offer?” So, we went over to the office and asked, “Who is coming!?” Well, it turned out it was the Emerson String Quartet, which is one of the greatest string quartets in the world. We were somewhat dumbfounded and we asked, “What are they doing?” and the representative from the festival told us, “They are doing the late Beethoven quartets wrapped around the late Shostakovich quartets,” which might just be our favorite pieces in the world, except for Bach.

In 2001, two weeks into our month-long rental, we bought a house. We just fell completely in love. We called it the conspiracy to get the Vander family to move to Ojai.

Besides music, the thing Judy and I love the most is hiking. We spent most of our summers hiking the Grand Tetons in Jackson, Wyoming. I also love tennis. Maybe another part of the conspiracy is someone introduced me to a tennis group self-named, The Cronies, for old geezers like myself. I am delighted that at ninety I am still playing two to three times a week. But nature, of course, is how I got introduced to OVLC. Anything in the natural world is at the top of our list.

*Restoration in progress at the Ojai Meadows Preserve in 2006.*

Can you tell me how you first heard about OVLC and how you eventually started volunteering?

That’s another piece of luck! The Ventura River Preserve (VRP) was purchased in 2003. I believe I was on the first guided hike led by Jim Engel. Our newspaper reported that there was going to be a guided hike at the newly purchased preserve. So, I went! I remember asking Jim what could I do to support the organization. At that time, OVLC was just getting organized to start putting together callouts for volunteers. I, of course, volunteered right away. They had us patrolling the preserve to make sure that everything was okay. I honestly don’t remember when the docent program started, but it certainly started on the VRP well before the Ojai Meadows Preserve (OMP). We did not have any docents at the meadows until around 2007. I always maintained being a docent on both preserves, but my favorite by far was the OMP, because the preserve tells a story. It’s such a wonderful and miraculous story, and I love being able to tell it.

Can you tell me a bit about the history of the OMP?

I love the history of the OMP. One of the first miracles was the fates that the OMP escaped. There are two divisions, or parts, of the OMP. The southern thirty acres or so is within the city, and the twenty-five acres, which was known as Besant Meadows at the time, is in the county. Both of them underwent an incredible number of times in which developers wanted to do something with them. The 1970’s and 80’s were probably among the peak years. There were many, many proposals for big box stores next to big subdivisions. One was for 150 houses next to a huge shopping center! Each of them, for the most part, depended upon changing the zoning rules. So, both the city and the county were able to amass enough support to petition the change in zoning laws, which would not allow for the kind of thing that the developers wanted to put on the land. The strangest one of all was in the 60’s when Caltrans decided they wanted to continue the super highway. Coming up from Casitas Springs into Ojai, it would have branched out so that Ojai would have been divided into four quarters. An exit ramp for this super highway was to be located exactly where the Ojai Meadows Preserve is today.

There’s another interesting story. The school in upper Ojai, which used to be called the Happy Valley School, and now is Besant Hill School of Happy Valley, was founded by a woman named Annie Besant, who owned a large portion of the OMP, and she started Happy Valley School there. Hence why the twenty-five-acre parcel was known as Besant Meadows. This is a period in which Jiddu Krishnamurti was brought from India to be the head of the theosophical movement in Ojai. He then started the Krishnamurti Foundation. At any rate, Happy Valley School was certain that Caltrans was going to take the land by eminent domain and put the super highway and the exit ramp on it. So, the school moved to upper Ojai, but they kept the property.

Long story short, OVLC was able to raise the funds to purchase the land. I thought that was wonderful! There were so many instrumental people who played a role in protecting the OMP. To me, it was miraculous that after nine or ten developmental proposals, the land was going to be preserved and restored forever.

*A 1929 aerial photo shows the historic remnants of the wetlands that once existed at the Ojai Meadows Preserve.*

I believe one of the main reasons that OVLC was able to purchase the land was a 1929 aerial photo. It’s on the main kiosk right when you enter the preserve from the Highway 33 side. It shows a five-acre pond and wetland in the middle of what became the preserve. It shows braided streams coming from the hill and what is now Nordhoff’s field, and a rich oak forest of both coast live oaks and valley oaks. Old timers that were still around said there used to be a big pond that had a boat on it, and it was a beautiful wetland with all kinds of flowers.

Starting way before 1929, a tremendous number of trees and scrub were removed from the preserve, creating a lot of silt and erosion. Then, with an increase in housing development in the valley, they dumped all of their fill onto where the preserve is today. Then, there were cows grazing, hay harvesting, and farming. The building of the high school also dumped a huge load of debris onto the preserve. Finally, the construction of the highway cut it off entirely. But, people like Rich Handley and others were far-sighted enough to think, “Hey, maybe we could restore this land to its previous condition,” which was amazing. That’s why I love the OMP. I consider it a miracle. It’s a miracle that this preserve is returning back to being an incredible natural space.

What gave birth to getting the money to finally restore the land was the flooding of Highway 33. Every time it rained, the highway flooded. All of the silt, erosion, and debris filled in the pond where the water used to drain to naturally. The water was now draining out of the meadows, instead of into it. In 2004, Mike Krumpschmidt, a teacher at Nordhoff, got a multi-million dollar grant to regrade the Nordhoff campus and the meadows so the water would no longer drain into the street, but instead back into the newly dug out pond. The reason this is so important is because Nordhoff High School is the main evacuation center for Ojai, and every time it rained, you couldn’t get to it because the highway was completely flooded!

*A flooded Hwy 33 in 2005 prior to the reconstruction of the Maricopa Drain.*

*Initial grading of the Maricopa Drain began in 2007.*

*After the Maricopa Drain was reconstructed, water returned to the preserve within a year, and the pond was formed in 2008.*

There actually was a drain in place that was supposed to drain water from the highway, and the property across from it, into the OMP. However, this drain was clogged with debris, and the stream itself was completely inundated with plants and strange things like sandbags. It was totally non-functional. The first major operation OVLC took on at the OMP was to completely redo that drain, which is now the stream that runs from the highway into the pond. OVLC also worked with the high school to deal with another completely clogged drain leading from the high school into the preserve. Once that was redone, it became the second source of water flowing into the preserve. Lastly, all of the water from the Taormina housing development, as well as others nearby, were also directed to flow into the pond. So, you now have three entries and one exit out of the Happy Valley Drain for the water to flow. This was all done over many years. Eventually the flow of water was restored to the wetland. It’s so efficient! It is said that if we receive one inch of rain when the pond is empty, that one inch of rain will refill it.

The other important thing that was done early on, around 2004-2007, was a group of experts were brought in. They were experts in hydrodynamics, biology, and ecology, and they planned the initial vision of what steps were going to be taken to create the Ojai Meadows Preserve. The planning and planting still continues, and I think very intelligently. It’s been twenty years now, and it is just amazing. So many people have played an important role in getting the preserve to where it is today.

*In 2007, check dams and erosion netting were installed in the Taormina Drain after the intial grading was completed.*

*Patagonia volunteers planted cottonwood and sycamore trees along the banks of the Taormina Drain in 2007.*

*Following years of restoration efforts, the Taormina Drain now flourishes with native habitat. Photo taken in 2015.*

Can you speak to the significance of restoring the OMP?

First is just the aesthetic of having a nature preserve in the heart of town. I think the public understands it is wonderful to have a nature preserve with native plants, wildlife, and trails. Also, having so many young people from the community getting their hands dirty and working to help restore the land is wonderful.

One value that I think is not always apparent to people who walk on it is the profound effect the preserve has on water purification. All of our water comes from the foothills here and forms what we know as the Ventura River Watershed. A huge portion of that water flows through the preserve and is purified as a result. Flood control is also huge. Things that are invisible to most people were a major reason for purchasing and protecting the land in the first place. This also includes the county’s bioswale, which is located adjacent to the elementary school on Lomita Avenue. Something like eighty percent of the water from Meiners Oaks goes through the bioswale, and that too was put in with the cooperation of OVLC. I think for the City of Ojai, just having such a beautiful restored place in the heart of the valley that’s open to the public is truly a treasure to be appreciated.

*The main pond at the Ojai Meadows Preserve in 2024.*

Are there observations or specific triumphs in the care of the OMP you have seen since this purchase?

Again, I don’t use the word miracle lightly, but I do consider it one. That’s why I love the place so much. I never would have dreamed it could be restored to the state it is in now. But, you know, it’s not done. There’s a whole lot more to be done in terms of restoration. It’s a miraculous place, and it’s a tribute to the imagination of many people, and the tremendous work of volunteers.

We have Mark Silbernagel to thank for so much that’s happening now with volunteers. It’s a huge effort, but understanding the past energizes me, to know we are building off of such incredible work and a lot of love.

It certainly was a lot of love, and so much more is known now when it comes to restoration.

Tell me about being a docent. Also, I have heard you were OVLC’s first docent. Is this true?

I think I am among the first. I know I was in the first group of docents. I am not sure about being the first, that is, ha-ha. I honestly can’t remember when the program started. I think it sort of evolved from the volunteer patrollers. I always enjoyed teaching. I spent my life in the usual academic trio of research, teaching, and administration. The reason I particularly loved being a docent at the OMP was that it was such a wonderful place to go on walks, and I got so much satisfaction from seeing people enjoying their walks. It was also about being able to tell a story. As I’ve mentioned, that’s why I am so fond of the Ojai Meadows Preserve; it has a beautiful story!

My docent trips were focused on the history, the birds, and the plants. There was a man named John Pavelko, and we used to do the guided tours together. He was an excellent birder, and I knew all of the plants then. It’s not just the pleasure of giving the talk, but of having people understand the value of this place. On the surface, you could go to the preserve and walk your dog on a leash for fun. However, upon realizing its contributions to flood control, water purification, and habitat creation for the diverse bird species that returned within just two years after water restoration, its significance becomes apparent. It was just a great joy to get to be a part of that educational activity.

What do you love most about land conservation? What brings you hope or joy?

I am a political junky, and I guess in times of such political despair and anger between people, I think there is still hope for us. People can come together when they are given a chance to understand natural phenomena and the meaning of natural spaces for their own lives. That’s maybe the best way of bringing people together, I hope.

That’s beautiful. I know when I am feeling off or overwhelmed,
I just like to get outside.

Yes! Go for a walk! It turns out, coming from a physiologist, there’s no question that walking is the best medicine for everything. Whether you are talking about mental function or physical function, it doesn’t have to be intense exercise. Just walking is wonderful for the brain and the body.

Judy and I have had the luxury over the years of doing a great deal of walking and hiking in beautiful places. But what we have realized living here in Ojai, we have lost our travel bug. I mean, you know the photo of us with Mount Everest, that was an amazing activity, but it’s no better than taking a walk in the Ojai Meadow Preserve or any other OVLC preserve for that matter. Honestly, it’s just being out in nature. It doesn’t have to be something sensational, especially if it’s something that you love doing, like how much I loved being a docent.

Art, thank you so much. I appreciate all you have done over the years for our community. It’s been such a joy talking with you.