Santa Clara River Levee (SCR-1) Levee Improvement Project

Project Specifications

Client: County of Ventura

Location: Ventura County

Services: Environmental Review & Permitting, Air Quality & Climate Services, Biological Resources, Public Participation & Community Involvement, Geospatial Sciences & Data Analysis

The Ventura County Watershed Protection District (District) proposes to rehabilitate the Santa Clara River levee system upstream of Highway 101 (SCR-1) to meet the levee criteria of both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and provide adequate protection from a one percent annual chance (formerly known as 100-year) flood event along the Santa Clara River for approximately 1,400 structures (residential, public, commercial, industrial, and agricultural) located in North Oxnard (El Rio area), Ventura County.

Aspen is supporting the District by providing environmental input to the proposed design, participating in pre-scoping meetings, preparing the Initial Study per the Ventura County Initial Study Assessment Guidelines (2011), and will coordinate with the District and USACE to prepare a joint CEQA/NEPA document (EIR/EA or EIR/EIS) in combination with the engineering Feasibility Study to meet the requirements of the USACE’s Section 203 process. Aspen will prepare the Findings, Statement of Overriding Considerations, and Notice of Determination. Permitting support will also be provided by Aspen, including Clean Water Act Section 401 and 404 (Nationwide Permit authorization anticipated), and Section 1602 Streambed Alteration Agreement.

To support this project, Aspen’s GIS team created mobile data collection applications for field biologists to collect vegetation, drainage, and nesting bird data. In addition, live web maps were created for construction monitoring activities that were shared with the client to provide up-to-date information regarding progress of construction and biological resources that were observed.