Site 1: Main Street Bridge
An excerpt from our July 2004 Newsletter

Where is it? Site 1, located on the main stem of the Ventura River, is our lowermost sampling site for Ventura Stream Team. The site is directly upstream of the estuary and just above tidal (salt water) influence. This site is very close to the Surfrider office where we meet on Saturday mornings. From the office, head west on Main Street and pass under the
Highway 33 overcrossing. Take an immediate left into the parking area on the left side of the road and park. From here, head down into the riverbed. Walk under the Main Street overcrossing for several minutes until you reach the river (during higher flow you won’t have to walk as far). Sample here.

What is unique about this site? This is our closest site to the ocean. Therefore, this site gives us the best information about how the watershed is actually affecting the ocean. The riverbed is extremely wide at this site, which gives us a clue as to how large the river can get under high flow conditions. Often times we must walk for several minutes through the river-bed just to reach any water!

Results at this site: Our first reaction might be to think that water quality at this site is very poor, because it is the lowest site and we would assume that all upstream pollution eventually reaches this site.

However, this is not necessarily true. Remember that rivers and other water bodies have the
amazing ability to cleanse themselves and to filter out pollutants. Therefore, water quality at
Site 1 is often better than at some of its up-stream neighbors. The one major exception is
trash; because many homeless people live under the Main Street bridge, there is usually a great deal of trash throughout this area.

Conductivity usually falls within a normal range (between 1000-2000 µS), occasionally reading lower during major storm events. pH is also normal, always falling between the “healthy” range of 6.5 to 8.5. Temperature is nearly always below the safe limit of 22ºC. Dissolved oxygen levels are usually very high, but have occasionally fallen below safe levels (during late summer/fall of 2002). Turbidity at this site is acceptable, nearly always falling within normal ranges, but it is generally higher here than most of the other sites. For the most part, bacteria levels at this site are very good. Bacteria levels rarely exceed safe limits, with the exception of major storms. For example, E.Coli levels have only exceeded safe standards on 3 out of 72 occasions, and two of those exceedances were during storms events.