FROM THE DIRECTOR / WINTER 2023
By any standard, I’m a newcomer to the Ojai Valley, having taken this job just a few months prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, I had only heard from the old-timers about the power of flooding when the rain really comes. The big flood years of ’69, ’78, ’98, and ’05 live in infamy. As I write this, OVLC is working to acquire a property on San Antonio Creek that lost its home in the 1969 flood.
The recent floods of 2023 provided a first-hand lesson of the power of the Ventura River and its tributaries. My wife and I have the good fortune to live along the Ventura River, and we had a front row seat to the awesome power of the river in flood stage. While the river has returned to its usual flow, during peak flow the river took down everything in its path—including mature trees. There is now a small tractor in the flood channel that was not there before the storm (though it clearly has been in the river for many years)!
According to locals, this was a pretty standard “reset” of the river in terms of the scouring of new channels and deposition of material. Flooding in this watershed is complicated by the extremely high sediment load from our steep and highly erosive mountains; debris flows and persistent sediment loads fill stream channels. Indeed, since its construction, the reservoir behind the Matilija Dam has completely filled with sediment. As the stream channels fill in, the potential for streams to jump their banks is real. This is when property damage can become devastating.
Despite the power and damage of the recent storm, Dr. Daniel Swain from UCLA cautions that this atmospheric river occurred during a relatively dry La Niña period and that similar storm conditions during an El Niño is expected to entrain tremendously more water. Dr. Swain also wrote a highly cited article about the catastrophic potential of these events given the shifting dynamics of the atmosphere due to climate change. Swain warns that a repeat of the Great Flood of 1862 (euphemistically referred to as “the other big one”) has the potential to cause trillions in damages.
In other words, we need to think about and prepare for floods in a time of drought. OVLC’s restoration of the Ojai Meadows Preserve provides a glowing example of how nature-based solutions (in this case restored wetlands that store flood water and attenuate high flows) can help prepare us for the next big event. OVLC’s watershed-wide approach to the eradication of giant reed is also a flood control measure. On the Parkway Preserve, OVLC is working with the Trust for Public Land on constructing a bioswale and wetlands to help mitigate flows out of Cañada Larga.
When we think about climate resilience in this valley, our focus naturally goes to water scarcity. However, climate models tell us to be ready for more extreme flooding as well. The work OVLC does restoring floodways, protecting floodplains, and planning for floodwaters represents nature-based solutions that create resilience for all of us in the valley.
Tom Maloney
Executive Director