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By
David Reyes
Los
Angeles Times
August 25, 2006
In the foggy, predawn hours Thursday, bulldozers and giant
excavators shoved aside the remaining mounds of beach sand and
reunited the Pacific Ocean and the Bolsa Chica wetlands for
the first time in more than a century.
It was the most significant and visible step in the long,
ambitious effort to revive the degraded wetlands. The flow of
ocean water — cut off by members of a duck hunting club in
1899 — is expected to help transform the saltwater marshes
into a major wildlife sanctuary.
Once slated to be developed into an oceanfront housing tract,
the wetlands were spared by environmentalists who lobbied for
both money and political support to restore the marshland.
Although fresh water — mostly urban runoff carried in flood
channels — has long drained into the marshland, ocean water
had, until Thursday, been blocked from reaching the area.
For conservationists, the earthmovers that finished cutting
the ocean channel early Thursday were a welcome sight.
At 5 a.m., more than 100 people — some who toasted the event
with champagne while others photographed the historic moment
— lined a small bridge overlooking the recently carved inlet
in Huntington Beach that would link the sea and marsh.
"I was out here at sunset last night because I
wanted to walk the berm for the last time," said Karen
Moon Kuster, 55, of Long Beach. "It's really exciting to
be here, because it's going to be wonderful now that it's
restored."
Environmentalist Shirley Dettloff arrived at 4 a.m. A founder
of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a preservation group that has grown
from six to 2,000 members over the years, Dettloff and a
hard-core group of supporters had battled developers who
wanted to turn the wetlands into, first, a marina and then
housing.
"I absolutely have chills right now," said Dettloff,
a former Huntington Beach councilwoman and former state
Coastal Commission member. "This is the group that
believed in this project for 30 years, and to see this day is
amazing."
As she spoke, giant excavators guided by floodlights dug out
the final shovelfuls of sand. "I really didn't care what
time this was going to happen; I would have been here any
time," she said.
The construction work caps a three-year, $147-million state
project to reclaim a portion of the 880-acre wetlands that,
for years, had been used for oil drilling.
State bonds provided revenue, but most of the restoration
costs were covered by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach
as part of a mitigation measure for port expansion.
The restoration project included scooping out 2 million cubic
yards of sediment and building jetties, two bridges spanning
the 360-foot-wide inlet, and several public viewing areas.
Bulldozers began knocking down the last remaining barrier —
a 15-foot-tall, 400-foot-long sand berm — at 3 a.m., and
removed the final scoop of sand at 5:50 a.m. The moment was
timed to coincide with low tide so the incoming rush of ocean
water would not be overpowering.
Now linked to the ocean, the wetlands area along Pacific Coast
Highway will rise and fall with the ebb and flow of the tide.
The ocean water, biologists say, will be a fast-acting
medicine, bringing marine life and additional migratory birds
back to the wetlands.
The wetlands already are home to roughly 200 species of birds,
including threatened ones, such as the California least tern
and the light-footed clapper rail.
The restoration work undoes the effort of turn-of-the-century
duck hunters who walled off the ocean in an effort to create
ponds to make it easier to catch their prey. In the 1880s, the
hunting club bought the land, which had been owned by farmers
who grew lima beans and celery there. Oil drilling intensified
after World War II, and more homes were built in the area.
Now, wetlands are recognized as vital filters for urban
runoff, stopovers for migrating birds and habitats for
endangered species.
Southern California has other significant wetlands such as the
Los Cerritos wetlands in the Long Beach area, the Buena Vista
wetlands in Carlsbad and the Ballona wetlands in Los Angeles
County.
But Bolsa Chica, which contained an oil field, is regarded as
"the largest and most complicated in terms of cleanup in
the state," said Robert Hoffman, a National Marine
Fisheries Service biologist who is on the project's steering
committee.
Jack Fancher, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in
charge of the project, has referred to the decades-long battle
to restore Bolsa Chica as "a steeplechase" because
of the obstacles the project faced.
One hurdle emerged this month when project leaders were
notified by the owner of the remaining oil wells, Aera Energy
LLC, that the company needed more time to clean up soil that
might be contaminated with oil-drilling residue.
The cornerstone of the Bolsa Chica restoration work was
creating the inlet so that ocean water could flow into the
wetlands. But because of the company's concerns, seawater was
allowed into only a portion of the wetlands that border
Pacific Coast Highway.
Soil cleanup by the company is underway, said Susan Hersberger,
an Aera spokeswoman. But the company also has expressed
concern about whether it is prudent to introduce seawater into
an active oil field, she said.
"The company seeks more study for impact and risks and
would like more analysis," she said. Both sides have
agreed to extend the cleanup deadline 30 days.
Although 65 oil wells have been removed so far, drilling will
continue with 55 remaining oil wells in a 250-acre section of
the wetlands until the operation is no longer economically
viable. Then it too will be cleared away.
At one time, as many as 4,884 homes were proposed for the
wetlands, which developers argued were so degraded they were
beyond any restoration effort. By 1996, the proposal had
shrunk to 3,300 homes. A year later, the state paid $25
million for 880 acres. That parcel was added to 300 acres that
landowner Signal Landmark had given to the state for wetlands
preservation in 1973. The result was the Bolsa Chica
Ecological Reserve, whose boundaries have since grown.
Bolsa Chica supporters believe the wetlands will be visited by
thousands of schoolchildren seeking to learn about wildlife
and the ocean.
For spectators including Doug Morgan of Huntington Beach, who
got daughter Kylee, 4, and son Jack, 6, out of bed to watch
the inlet's opening, it was akin to witnessing a major event,
like the Rose Parade, in his backyard.
"We wanted to wake up early and see this," Morgan
said. "My daughter was pretty excited."
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