Cheerful Charge of the Blight Brigade : Friends of Bolsa Chica Wetlands Turn Out for Post-Summer Cleanup Campaign

In the gray Saturday morning sky, a plane was hauling an advertising blowup of a can of beer back and forth along Bolsa Chica State Beach. On the ground, across Pacific Coast Highway, volunteers were cleaning up the empty beer cans and other trash left behind or dumped in the Bolsa Chica wetlands by the summer’s beachgoers.

Dozens of bags of garbage were collected, even as a carload of surfers, turned away from the free parking lot reserved Saturday for the volunteers, roared by spewing curses and making gestures at the workers.

Free Winter Tours

The volunteers were getting the reserve spruced up for the winter season’s free guided tours of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve that begin next Saturday.

The tours provide visitors with views of 150 species of birds that flock to the natural wildlife habitat for feeding, nesting and resting. The thousands of birds are matched in numbers by fish that use the protected waters as a nursery.

The 1,200-acre marshland also has become a battleground between Amigos de Bolsa Chica, the volunteer group sponsoring the cleanup and providing the tours, and developers who want to turn most of the area into an exclusive marina for expensive homes, restaurants and a hotel.

Cheerful Contingent

Despite the distractions, about 50 volunteers cheerfully went about their work, taking time from their chores to marvel at a few of the things they found.

One group of volunteers came across tomato plants growing wild on the side of an embankment. Another found the completely cleaned, intact upper skull of a small animal that was thought to be that of a raccoon or a Chihuahua.

“We’ve never found a skull like this before,” said Dan Yparraguirre, a wildlife biologist for the state Fish and Game Department. The state agency helped the volunteers clean up the reserve.

Doug Angulo, a Golden West College sophomore, came across a nest of bird eggs and carefully worked around it so he would not disturb it. He also had to be careful later on when he almost stepped on a small rattlesnake.

“It was all coiled up like it was ready (to attack),” Angulo said. He eased away and the snake eventually went to sleep.

Even a Transmission

But for the most part Amigos volunteers, with help from several other organizations, found trash--everything from mounds of cigarette butts dumped from car ashtrays along the road to an automobile transmission tossed in the brush near the reserve’s main parking lot on Pacific Coast Highway.

Partially filled plastic sandbags used during the winter storms of 1983 also turned up during the annual cleanup, said Dick Kust, a member of Amigos and Friends of Newport Bay.

“I don’t see as much (trash) as I’ve seen in past years,” said Trude Hurd, a Cal State Fullerton biology teacher, as she took a brief break from picking up pieces of paper and plastic and interminable bits of Styrofoam.

“It used to be we’d get a lot of big items like tires and kites,” she said. “We’ve even found bathing suits and, last year, we found a purse with drug paraphernalia in it.”

Hurd plans to bring her students to the reserve next week as part of a field trip.

Besides being a haven for birds and fish, the reserve is an educational resource for students of all ages, said Adrianne L. Morrison, coordinator for Amigos. The two-mile trek around a portion of the reserve not only gives visitors a view of the wide expanse of the habitat but also provides them with informational signposts about the yearly bird migration.

Amigos will set up rest areas throughout the route every Saturday and provide guides to explain more about the wetlands, Morrison said.