Oxnard committee forwards Channel Islands Harbor water-quality update to City Council

The City of Oxnard Public Works and Transportation Committee on Sept. 23 received an update on degrading water quality in Channel Islands Harbor and voted 3-0 to forward the report to the full City Council as a receive-and-file item.

The presentation, prepared by volunteers from the Channel Islands Neighborhood Council Marine Advisory Committee and delivered by Chuck Carter, summarized monitoring results, identified likely pollutant sources and potential best-management-practice (BMP) responses, and outlined next steps including an implementation plan the city’s public works department is scheduled to review this fall. Carter told the committee, "We need to restore our harbor water quality."

The update matters because the harbor is a local economic and recreation resource and because monitoring by volunteers and consultants indicates repeated exceedances of state water-quality targets for bacteria, low dissolved oxygen events and concentrations of pesticides in drainage channels that feed the harbor. The presenters and staff said those conditions followed the 2018 shutdown…