Hi Everyone,

 We attended this ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday for the new Happy Valley Bioswale on the Ojai Meadows Preserve in Ojai.  It was a fantastic group of committed people from city, county & state, agencies, coming together for this remarkable project.   And all using language that just a few years ago would have been considered "permaculture speak", and now being used by all as if it were their first language.  Ventura County officials sounded positively enlightened, as did the State official who managed the grant for the project.

It is definitely worth a visit, and, as an extra bonus, looks like the wildflowers will be in bloom soon on this beautiful piece of land that was preserved by committed citizens through the Ojai Land Conservancy. 

Bioswales in landscaping capture water, filter out pollutants

Dave Laak in the Ventura Country STAR on February 27th, 2016



Have you ever attended a ribbon-cutting for a bioswale? Do you wonder what in the world a bioswale is?

You can learn more about the Ventura County Public Works Agency Watershed Protection District's recently completed Happy Valley  Bioswale project at the ribbon-cutting on Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy's Ojai Meadows Preserve, 380 South Lomita Ave., Meiners Oaks.

Bioswales are landscape elements designed to remove sediment and pollution from stormwater or street runoff water. They typically consist of a long, channeled depression (swale) with gently sloped sides. Within the bioswale, grasses, flowering shrubs or organic matter such as mulch slow down the water, allowing infiltration into soil and resulting in natural filtering of pollutants. There are many examples of bioswales around Ventura County, as they are becoming a common requirement for new projects throughout the area, helping clean and infiltrate runoff.

The Happy Valley Bioswale was made possible due to collaboration of the County of Ventura and Ojai Valley Land Conservancy. The State Water Resources Control Board awarded Proposition 84 funding for the project. Construction began in August and was completed within four months.

The project treats the Meiners Oaks stormwater runoff that flows along South Lomita Avenue to the Happy Valley Drain, a Ventura River tributary. Runoff from 37 acres ­ or 40 percent of the residential and commercial area of Meiners Oaks ­ is treated by the bioswale.

To meet stringent Clean Water Act requirements, the vegetated  swale has a baffle box for removal of trash, sediment, nitrogen and other common stormwater pollutants. The completed project also includes a diversion structure to intercept flows from the storm drain system into the swale to slow down and spread stormwater for additional treatment and biodegradation of pollutants before water returns to the storm drain system.

The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy is the owner of the project site and will take over the ownership and long-term maintenance of the Happy Valley Bioswale's vegetation.

Especially during this time of drought, stormwater is a valuable resource to capture and reuse or infiltrate into the ground. The phrase "Slow it! Spread it! Sink it!" refers to slowing down the runoff from impervious surfaces such as driveways, sidewalks and rooftops, allowing this runoff to naturally spread out over vegetated areas, infiltrate into the ground while watering plants, filter out pollutants and recharge groundwater supplies. The pollutants picked up off hard surfaces by stormwater commonly include trash, oil and grease, nutrients and bacteria.

Although the Happy Valley Bioswale is a highly engineered project to reduce stormwater pollution draining from a large urban area, the average homeowner can do simple things to achieve the same benefits on a smaller scale. By simply redirecting your rain downspouts to shallow vegetated areas or to a garden area that has been slightly graded to keep and infiltrate the water on-site, you can reduce pollutants coming from your own property and depend less on irrigation water for your plants and trees.

As a part of the Happy Valley Bioswale project, the county, in collaboration with Surfrider Foundation, will offer free seminars and hands-on workshops this fall in Meiners Oaks on how to design and implement simple stormwater-capture features in residential yards.

By keeping your eye on the environment and implementing small changes at home to "Slow it, Spread it, Sink it" we can all do our part in keeping our watersheds and waterways clean.

Dave Laak is a water quality planner with the Ventura County Public Works Agency.

 
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
http://www.sbpermaculture.org

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