Ventura, CA Environmental Rules: Erosion Control (2026)

The San Buenaventura Municipal Code treats the period between November 1 and April 15 as the city's rainy season, the stretch when heavy rainfall normally occurs (Section 12.215.030(L)(1)). During that window, the City Engineer will not authorize any grading job exceeding 250 cubic yards on a single permitted site if the work is found to endanger public health or safety. Any grading permit issued before the rainy season that is still open once the season starts must be protected with temporary erosion control devices (Section 12.215.030(L)(2)).

Plans for those erosion control devices, including any desilting basin that discharges into a city street or natural watercourse, must be submitted to the City Engineer for design approval no later than October 1 of the coming rainy season (Section 12.215.030(L)(3)). Every contractor grading during the rainy season must remove loose dirt from the site and install adequate anti-erosion or drainage devices, debris basins and other safety controls to protect public and private property; all of that temporary erosion control equipment, including desilting basins, has to be in place no later than November 1 of each year (Section 12.215.030(L)(4)).

The code separately bars anyone from grading or filling in a way that lets rocks, soil or debris fall, slide or flow onto a neighboring property (Section 12.215.030(L)(5)), and it ties every grading job to the Ventura Countywide stormwater program and the state's NPDES construction general permit, cross-referencing the NPDES compliance rules at Section 12.220.080 (Section 12.215.030(L)(6)). The City Engineer administers the whole division and can suspend a permit outright if site conditions turn out to differ from what the application described.