Opposition to Ocean Entrance : Amigos Continue to Fight Signal

One of the finest moments for Amigos de Bolsa Chica occurred several years ago on a Saturday, when members were conducting one of the group’s regular tours of the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

A man walked up to an Amigos information table and said: “I’d like to help. I’d like to give you some stock to help the cause,” according to Lorraine Faber of Huntington Beach, a past president of the group that has long opposed development in the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

When Faber and Shirley Detloff, an Amigos staff member, met the man later at a savings and loan, they could hardly believe it. The stock was worth $18,000. And it was Signal Oil stock. Today, a subsidiary, Signal Landmark Properties Inc., is the company that is trying to develop the area.

“It was marvelous,” Faber said. And she wasn’t just talking about the money.

The 1,000-member group used the money to finance trips to Sacramento to testify against Signal over legislation affecting the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

Trip to Sacramento

Now a team of Amigos members is planning another trip to Sacramento on Aug. 17, this time to testify against SB 1517, which would allow the formation of a special district, dominated by Signal, that could sell bonds and issue permits within the Bolsa Chica area.

The Amigos group has long been the thorn in the side of Signal’s vision for Bolsa Chica development, which includes a navigable ocean entrance leading to 5,700 residential units, a 1,300-slip marina and commercial facilities.

The group, which was formed 11 years ago after a study of Bolsa Chica by the League of Women Voters and the American Assn. of University Women, opposes Signal’s development if it includes a navigable ocean channel through some of the area’s best wetlands.

While other agencies and organizations have shown a willingness to negotiate with Signal, the Amigos group has stood firm in its opposition. That has earned it the respect of many and a label of “obstructionist” from others.

One of those who is frustrated with the Amigos at the moment is Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who would like to have the Amigos on board as a supporter when her SB 1517 goes before the Assembly Natural Resources Committee in two weeks.

But Bergeson, who has negotiated with the City of Huntington Beach and other agencies in an attempt to mold a bill that satisfies their concerns, last week concluded that “there is little that could be done to the bill that would really bring support from the Amigos.”

Bergeson said she has attempted to “somehow strip away the emotional past.”

She points out that Signal already has received preliminary approval from the state Coastal Commission and the Orange County Board of Supervisors for its project, in return for restoring 915 acres of wetlands and turning them over to the state.

“Those battles have been fought and decided,” Bergeson said. “We’re merely following up with a mechanism by which that decision can be carried out.”

But members of the Amigos say it is by no means a foregone conclusion that Signal will be allowed to build a navigable channel as part of its development; many studies of its feasibility still are pending. They have accused Bergeson of helping Signal weight the process in favor of the navigable channel.

The Amigos support a non-navigable channel as the best way to restore the wetlands. And the group believes that, in any case, the Bergeson bill is premature.

“I can understand her desire to see some conclusion to this longstanding problem,” Amigos president Victor Leipzig said. “But the time is not right to achieve that solution, and this is not the mechanism.”