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A photo of a clean ormond wetland on a sunny day.

Ormond Beach

The Ormond Beach clean-ups are focused on engaging the local community and teaming up with environmental partners to shift the health of our coastline.  

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Restoring the most neglected beach in Ventura County: Surfrider-Style

The Pandemic did not slow down our fight to restore Ormond Beach. Nestled between the Port Hueneme Pier and the Point Mugu Navy Base, Ormond Beach is one of the largest and most crucial open-space wetland projects in California. Home to over 200 migrant bird species, the well-established dunes are also a fragile habitat to 2 endangered nesting shorebirds, the California Least Tern and Western Snowy Plover. Ormond lagoon is home to the endangered Tidewater Goby fish.
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The History of Ormond

Off-road racing, gang wars, and an EPA superfund site. South Oxnard has been subject to decades of environmental injustice due to the industrialization of the coastline in the late 1900s. In 1965, a 700,000-cubic-yard slag heap of toxic waste was left behind on the remains of an Oxnard City Dump by Halaco Engineering Co.  By 2007 it was abandoned and declared a toxic waste Superfund Site.

A photo of a volunteer sifting through mangled greenery and trash.
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Beach Healing Begins

In 2007, a woman named Nancy Pederson attempted to attract people to Ormond Beach. She procured the area at the end of Perkins Road and established the Ormond Pointe Native Plant Nursery. Unfortunately, Rival gangs and homeless moved into the area, forcing Penderson to abandon her project.

What lies ahead?

Our chapter is stoked to announce that the California Coastal Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy, have been awarded a $1,000,000 National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant  and Surfrider Ventura County has been included to provide beach clean-ups, nonpoint source trash monitoring, and water quality testing in the lagoon.

Ormond Cleanups

To date, we have removed over 84,509 lbs of trash with the help of 2,035 volunteers!

  • 2024 Totals: 409 volunteers removed 15,093 lbs of trash so far
  • 2023 Totals: 345 volunteers removed 15,669 lbs of trash
  • 2022 Totals: 104 volunteers removed 1,747 lbs of trash
  • 2021 Totals: 458 volunteers removed over 22,000 lbs of trash
  • 2020 Totals: 719 volunteers removed over 30,000 lbs of trash 

 

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CCD 2021 Ormond pic 1


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Stakeholders and Partners:

Each of these groups has worked to develop a restoration and access plan that balances habitat restoration and protection of sensitive plant and animal species with improved and increased public access. The Ormond Beach Restoration and Access Project (OBRAP) is open for public comment and can be viewed here.

  • The California State Coastal Conservancy (CSCC)
  • City of Oxnard
  • Ventura Audubon Society
  • California Coastal Commission (CCC)
  • The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
  • Coastal Keepers