Anaheim to Try to Relocate Wetlands Wildlife

The great blue heron and the snowy egret may have to give up their marshland habitat in Anaheim to other species--such as the Skyhawk and the Firebird.

The city plans to fill in the city’s last freshwater marsh, a 10.2-acre site at Ball Road and the Orange Freeway, to make way for a string of car dealerships.

But because the wetlands are considered part of the waterways of the United States, they fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And the corps has told the city it must build a replacement habitat “equal to the one that’s there now,” said Cliff Rader, an environmental protection specialist for the corps.

“Wetlands provide a habitat for numerous bird species and are vital for the overall health and maintenance of the natural ecosystem . . . which is essential if man himself can survive,” he said.

Whether the birds and other wildlife can adapt to man-made wetlands is unknown, biologists say. And the new marshland would have to be so real that year-round inhabitants, especially fish, could be introduced easily to the new surroundings.

The first man-made marsh was formed along the Colorado River less than 10 years ago, and biologists still are studying its success, said Jack Fancher, a biologist with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Although reconstructed coastal wetlands, such as Upper Newport Bay, have worked, no one has tried to establish a freshwater marsh in Orange County.

“You can build the house but you can’t guarantee it will be occupied,” Fancher said. “Our first choice is not to recommend the marshland be destroyed . . . but that’s not our call here.”

Fancher said studies show that most migratory birds, like the heron and egret, “don’t care whether a particular wintering site is a mile from where it was a year before, as long as there is a place for them to rest and feed and, ecologically speaking, (the wetlands) are in the same area,” he said.

The marsh is home to about 150 species of birds and is the only coastal nesting area for the great-tailed grackle and the yellow-headed blackbird, said Sylvia Ranney, bird information chairwoman of the Sea and Sage Chapter of the Audubon Society.

The city already has had to convince the corps that there is no other appropriate spot for a car dealership center. Now, city planners and consultants are looking at two sites on the Santa Ana River for the new wetlands.

Working with the corps in reviewing those sites are the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department of Fish and Game.

One prospective location is six acres of city-owned land southeast of La Palma Avenue and Weir Canyon Road. The other is a small, state-owned parcel on the north side of the Riverside Freeway and east of Imperial Highway.

Although both sites are near the freeway, birds “are not put off by the urban setting,” Fancher said.

The choice depends on whether the state Department of Transportation will sell the state property, and at what price, and how much it would cost to convert the sites.

It can cost as much as $25,000 an acre to excavate the land down to the water table, Fancher said, in addition to planting cattails, bullrush cottonwood and other plants indigenous to marshlands.

Preliminary studies have shown that the Weir Canyon site, which is in a flood control district, may not be as suitable as the Caltrans site, because new vegetation may slow the movement of water through the channel. The district’s job is to prevent the slow-moving Santa Ana River from overflowing.

No decision is expected until the consultant to the Anaheim Planning Department completes his study and it is reviewed by the four agencies involved, said John Anderson, an associate city planner.

“As we sort through the whole planning process and find out what is the most optimum, we hope to come up with the best possible win-win situation,” Anderson said.

Several organizations and residents protested the auto center plan at a December public hearing, at which the City Council voted to rezone the marsh from open space to industrial use.

Among the opponents were members of the Audubon Society chapter, who said they were skeptical that a man-made wetlands could be home to as many and varied species of wildlife as now inhabit the one to be displaced. “We absolutely want the wetlands retained,” said Audubon chapter President Ferne Cohen.