Wetlands Bill Misses Mark

For nearly two decades, state and local officials, environmentalists and property owners have been trying to come to some agreement on how to best develop the Bolsa Chica coastal area and, at the same time, restore and preserve its natural wetlands. They still haven’t found the solution, although a bill seeking that goal is now before the Legislature.

But the current bill, introduced by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), doesn’t really do it either.

A development plan has been approved by the state Coastal Commission. The intent of the new legislation is to now provide a means of financing the maintenance and restoration of the wetlands and the water and sewer system needed to service the residential-marina complex proposed by the Signal Landmark Co., the major landowner and developer. The means would be a special district that would be empowered to levy fees and assessments, sell bonds and even condemn land to develop the project.

The special district approach is not new. Many special water and sewer districts operate in much the same way. But having the district governed by a board elected by the district’s landowners essentially means, in this case, that Signal will be controlling the district.

The neighboring city of Huntington Beach, which supports the general project and most likely will one day annex the area, opposes putting that kind of municipal power in the hands of a private development company. That anxiety is not unreasonable, considering the special environmental concerns that have dominated development negotiations for so many years.

The Senate bill is also being opposed by the Sierra Club and a subsidiary of Shell Oil Co., which owns the mineral rights to the wetlands.

Despite that opposition, the bill was approved 6-0 last Wednesday by the Senate Local Government Committee, which Bergeson chairs. The special district approach to the complicated issue is fine. But the makeup of the controlling board should be changed Tuesday when the bill is scheduled for another hearing before the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

The Bolsa Chica property is presently in unincorporated county area, which puts it under the jurisdiction of the county Board of Supervisors. It would be in the public interest in that environmentally sensitive and controversial area to have the special district’s governing board also made up of elected officials responsible to the voters. The Legislature can do that by designating the supervisors as the district’s governing board, rather than giving control to the developer, whose main concern would be looking after the company’s financial interest.