Residents Tell Concerns Over Silty Channel : Mandalay Bay: Waterways are clogged with rubbish. Oxnard plans to dredge area, but environmental factors will slow the process.

With its elaborate network of canals connecting each home to Channel Islands Harbor, the fashionable Mandalay Bay neighborhood has long lured wealthy urbanites from Los Angeles to Oxnard.

But many residents say the much-ballyhooed waterways that attracted them to the upscale community have come to resemble a dumping ground full of floating yard waste, fast-food wrappers and soda cans.

Some homeowners are even complaining that deposits of silt and rubbish have becomeso thick in certain spots that their pricey yachts scrape bottom--sometimes suffering damage--and they can no longer sail safely to sea.

Jim Weeks, the Oxnard official in charge of maintaining the waterways, said the city is planning to hire a contractor to dredge the area where boats are getting stuck. But he said the work will not take place for at least eight months because Oxnard needs to obtain permits from almost a dozen government agencies.

Furthermore, the debris blocking the channel may be deemed hazardous waste, which would require Oxnard to safely dispose of the material, dramatically raising costs.

Silt in the waterways at the Ventura Keys neighborhood in Ventura was considered hazardous, and the costs for dredging the area’s canals skyrocketed, Weeks said.

“You can’t just hire a local contractor to start scooping stuff up,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. There are a lot of environmental regulations.”

Robert Gray said he recently ran aground in the canal behind his home and seriously damaged his boat’s propeller. It will cost him several hundred dollars to fix, he said.

“We want a sailboat, but I wouldn’t think of getting one now,” said Gray, 44. “My heart stops every time I pass through there.”

Gray said the waterway is so saturated with trash that he has to don his scuba gear several times a year and dive beneath his boat to scrape off accumulated junk.

“I pay close to $700 a year to keep these waters clean,” said Gray’s wife, Mary. “We expect more. I don’t know what . . . we’re paying for.”

Oxnard charges each household between $500 and $700 a year in assessment fees to dredge and clean the waterways and maintain the neighborhood’s landscaping. The city has amassed $1.1 million in a fund for dredging, and spends some of it for landscaping and maintaining seawalls. But the city has not dredged the canals since 1986, and residents say Oxnard’s maintenance efforts leave much to be desired.

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Bob Gowing said he has lived in Mandalay Bay for nine years and has yet to see the city dredge the canal next to his home. A nearby sewage drain runs right into the canal where he docks his yacht, dumping unfiltered lumps of waste after rains, he said.

From his back-yard deck, Gowing said he has seen many boats run aground amid the silt. “We offer them a rope,” he said jokingly.

But Gowing said he has never run aground, adding that the problem can easily be avoided by using common sense and not shoving off at low tide.

Faith Cosby, president of the Mandalay Bay homeowners association, said many residents are irate over Oxnard’s maintenance of the waterway--especially those who live on Monaco Drive, where the boaters are bottoming out.

“Having waterways that are not navigable is a serious problem,” Cosby said. “Right now, it’s only affecting a few people. But it could become worse, and no one should have to put up with that.”

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The problem with the waterways is caused by several storm drains that run into the canals at the eastern end of Mandalay Bay, said John Wais of the homeowners association.

One drain, which travels through Port Hueneme and into Mandalay Bay, dumps loads of rubbish straight into the canal between Victoria Avenue and Monaco Drive.

Residents have met with officials from Port Hueneme and Oxnard--which has a drain that dumps farm runoff into the canal--but have not been able to persuade the cities to divert the waste.

Jim McQuestion moved to Mandalay Bay from north Oxnard six years ago, attracted to the neighborhood by the patchwork of canals linking houses to the ocean. Now he says he cannot get his 34-foot powerboat out to sea at certain times of day, and he believes that his home’s value has been reduced.

“You can’t go out at low tide anymore,” said McQuestion, 60. “All that junk dumps there. . . . If I were to dump a wrapper in the water, I’d pay thousands of dollars. How is it that the city dumps all this garbage in there and gets away with it? A lot of us are upset.”