Brownley highlights importance of Ventura Harbor dredging

California Congresswoman Julia Brownley visited the Ventura Port District recently to celebrate the federal appropriation of $5,516,000 for the maintenance dredging of Ventura Harbor.

This is one of the Congresswoman’s ten Community Funded Projects which was included in the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus and was supported by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla.

The Community Project Funding supplements the funding made available for the project in the President’s Budget and ensures that the entrance to Ventura Harbor will be well cared for through the next dredging cycle in early 2023.

The check was presented to the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Ventura Board of Port Commissioners, Chris Stephens, and Michael Blumenberg.

“The dredging of Ventura Harbor is essential to ensuring continued operations of this critical West Coast fishing hub,” stated Congresswoman Brownley. “The annual funding is vital to ensuring that the harbor’s federally authorized channel remains open to those who rely upon the harbor, including the commercial fishing industry and supply chain businesses.”

The dredging of the entrance channel is performed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Maintaining this deep draft navigation channel ensures that the nearly 1,500 harbor vessels, including the Channel Islands National Park ferries, commercial fishing vessels, and private boaters have unrestricted access between the open ocean, Ventura Harbor, and the Ventura Keys.