Anaheim : Creation of Man-Made Marsh Is Under Way

Creation of a man-made marsh, believed to be the first artificial wetlands in the county, is under way to replace a marshland that now is an auto sales park.

Last September, city officials decided to pave an area at Ball Road and the Orange Freeway that environmentalists said is the last marsh in the city. The city also promised to replace the home for red egrets, green herons and other wildlife.

“I think we’ve come out with something really nice,” city Associate Planner John Anderson said. He added that the new wetlands at La Palma Avenue and Weir Canyon Road are larger than the old one.

Dick L. Purvis, a member of the Sea and Sage chapter of the Audubon Society, agreed that the new wetlands, which will be fed by the Santa Ana River, will be larger, have a more varied habitat and be more remote from civilization.

In 1985, Sea and Sage chapter officials protested the city’s move to fill in the freshwater marsh for an auto sales park. But if the city insisted on paving it, they said, the replacement was “the best thing they could do.”

Meanwhile, about 150 species of birds have gone elsewhere. Exactly where is “a good question,” Purvis said.

“I guess they were pushed out into the (Santa Ana) river or other similar areas,” he said.

Sea and Sage officials said that the new habitat will be one of the few man-made wetlands in existence.

Anderson said the marsh that was paved had existed for 10 to 15 years, and to “term it as a wetland was really a misnomer. That never really was a wetlands. It was a short-term phenomenon.” The area was a sand and gravel pit until vegetation began growing and attracting wildlife.