Huntington Beach Told to Replant Marshland

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the City of Huntington Beach violated federal law in December when it bulldozed three acres of valuable freshwater marshlands that provided a rare nesting habitat for songbirds.

To compensate for the damage, an agency official said, the EPA is ordering the city to replant a thicket of cattails, willows, mulefat and other wild grasses that was destroyed by a controversial mosquito-abatement project at Huntington Beach Central Park last December.

“We felt there had been a violation of the Clean Water Act,” which requires a permit before a waterway is dredged or filled, EPA enforcement coordinator Robert Leidy said.

Leidy said that the city erred when it failed to seek a federal permit and that it should have conducted its marsh clearance project with more restraint.

“We concur that they have to control mosquitoes,” Leidy said, “but we would like to see them do it in a way that doesn’t mean they have to bulldoze all the riparian habitat. They have to do it in a way to minimize the impact to wildlife.”

Videotape of Operation

Leidy said he and other EPA officials reached their conclusion after visiting the site at Talbert Lake inside the park last week, speaking to city officials and viewing a videotape the city had made of the bulldozing operation.

City officials have promised to cooperate in restoring the marsh, Leidy said.

That was news to City Atty. Gail Hutton.

Hutton said she had not been notified of the EPA’s findings and could not say whether the city will contest them. But she cautioned: “I’m not sure that, because the EPA says we’ve committed a crime, we have to jump through 50 hoops that second.”

Last month, city Parks Director Daryl Smith defended his $12,000 cleanup as necessary to eradicate rats and thousands of mosquitoes that were breeding in ponds and thick, wet grasses in the park. Smith also said the bulldozing was performed at the request of county Vector Control officials.

But Smith further argued that the federal government had no jurisdiction over management of a city park. Hutton said that a staff attorney has been researching that issue.

Bird-Watching Area

Local bird watchers and wildlife biologists were outraged by the bulldozing, arguing that the city had destroyed an oasis known as one of the best bird-watching spots in Southern California and one of Southern California’s last freshwater marshes.

Some suggested that the city could have used less extreme measures to control the mosquito and rat problems, such as using chemicals or traps.

Their complaints led regional officials for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Fish and Game to investigate.

In early January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote a letter to the EPA complaining that the city had destroyed part of “a riparian habitat within the park that supports one of the largest and densest concentrations of passerine migrants (migrant songbirds) anywhere in Orange County or, for that matter, the western United States.”

Fish and Wildlife Service officials said that about 40 species of birds regularly breed in the marsh and that about 200 species--including American lesser goldfinches, bushtits, northern orioles, warbling vireos and ruddy ducks--had been sighted there in the last four years.

Meanwhile, a state Department of Fish and Game official said that the agency was still investigating whether state law was violated by the bulldozing but that misdemeanor charges will probably be sought against Huntington Beach.

Under state law, public or private property owners must get a permit for work in a riparian habitat (habitat around streams, lakes or ponds), Fish and Game Department Patrol Lt. Mona Cole said.

In 1985, a state Fish and Game officer had warned the city against undertaking a similar clearance project without a permit, Cole said, but this time “it seems like they just proceeded.”

Cole dismissed the argument of Huntington Beach officials, who have defended the bulldozing in mid-December as routine maintenance of their property. “That will have no bearing,” she said. “The Irvine Co. goes through (environmental) mitigation with us. It’s not fair to do one and not the other.”

EPA enforcement coordinator Leidy said he will contact city officials next week to let them know whether he will issue an order to restore the area or whether the city should seek an after-the-fact permit for dredging the lake. The permit would be issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.

“Either way, there’s going to be restoration,” Leidy said. The city would then have 30 days to review the restoration plan, he said.

If the city must replant cattails, willows and a marsh grass called mulefat, the work will not come cheap.

Mike Evans, owner of Tree of Life, a native plants nursery in San Juan Capistrano, estimated that seeding and restoration could cost $6,000 an acre, possibly less. Last month, a federal wildlife service biologist estimated that the costs could range as high as $25,000 an acre.

For all the expense, an Orange County Audubon Society leader said, it would take about five years of replanting to restore the area to a wildlife habitat.

“They skinned the earth down to the mud,” said Dick Kust, president of the Audubon Society’s Sea and Sage Chapter. “But obviously replanting something so it starts growing back is better than nothing. And nothing is what we’ve got at the moment.

“I just hope that not only the City of Huntington Beach but other people who have control over wetlands as well will learn some respect, at least, for the law.”