Wetlands Restoration Pact to Be Signed

This afternoon, on the shores of the Batiquitos Lagoon in San Diego County, officials from six agencies will sign a pact allowing the Port of Los Angeles to “restore” 390 acres of shallow wetlands, home to the endangered California least tern and other rare birds.

The restoration is a so-called mitigation project, intended to compensate for the destruction of marine habitat when the port builds a landfill in San Pedro Bay.

In this case, the area being restored is 75 miles away from the area being destroyed.

Although the Los Angeles City Council supports the $20-million project, one council member--Joan Milke Flores, whose district encompasses the port--thinks the money ought to be spent closer to home. This week, at Flores’ urging, the council recommended that the port “use every effort possible to find future mitigation projects within the City of Los Angeles or the Los Angeles area.”

Port officials say they would like to heed the council’s request. But, they say that, like the least tern, mitigation sites in Southern California are an endangered species.

State law requires the ports, as well as private developers, to make up for significant environmental damage by creating or improving habitats that closely resemble the ones destroyed.

There are no suitable projects left in Los Angeles County, and few elsewhere in Southern California, according to officials.

With the Los Angeles port alone proposing to fill 800 acres by 1994, and both ports proposing to fill about 2,400 acres by the year 2020, officials are concerned that there will not be enough restoration projects to compensate for those landfills, and that it will be impossible to replace the type of marine habitat lost in San Pedro Bay.

“Up until now,” said Lillian Kawasaki, who manages the Batiquitos Lagoon project for the Port of Los Angeles, “we have been able to find mitigation projects, but they’re becoming more expensive and more difficult and we know that we’re going to run out of them if we keep on going. From now on, you’re going to see the City of Los Angeles working with the port and actually coming to grips with this.”

The quest for suitable projects is so intense that port officials complain that private companies, and even municipalities, are hoarding possible sites.

For instance, Kawasaki said, the Ballona Wetlands next to Marina del Rey is one of 17 high-priority restoration sites identified by state and federal wildlife agencies. But those wetlands are owned by Summa Corp., which intends to pay for their restoration as part of its development of a massive planned community called Playa Vista.

A Summa spokeswoman said that, without restoring the wetlands, the company would not get state permission for its project.

Another of the 17 sites, the Tijuana River estuary near San Diego, generated interest among Long Beach port officials. But, said Geraldine Knatz, assistant planning director for the Port of Long Beach, “we got a lukewarm reception in San Diego, and I think it’s because the city and county people in San Diego are really concerned that the ports are going to use up all of their opportunities for mitigation and limit their development opportunities down there.”

Port officials say the number of available sites is dwindling for several reasons: private ownership, particular problems at some locations which make them too expensive to restore, and the complex web of state and federal regulations and policies which restrict the number of projects that qualify.

Three environmental agencies--the state Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service--come into play. They require what is known as “in-kind mitigation,” meaning the habitat that is restored must match what is lost.

The agencies also prefer that the mitigation projects take place at the site of the environmental damage, although they concede that in the case of the ports extensive plans for future development make that impossible.

Richard Nitsos, a marine biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game, said that agency’s priority is to restore coastal wetlands in Southern California. Wetlands in the northern part of the state may not be restored as compensation for environmental damage in the south, Nitsos said, because the marine habitat there is different.

For the ports, whose developments generally harm saltwater environments, the regulations also mean that fresh-water sites do not qualify for restoration.

The Los Angeles City Council would like the ports to have greater flexibility. The council voted this week to have its legislative analysts explore the possibility of changing the relevant laws and policies. The vote stemmed from a recommendation by Flores, who initially wanted the Los Angeles port to clean up Harbor Lake, a fresh-water lake in her district, rather than the Batiquitos Lagoon.

“I feel that when mitigation measures are undertaken, they should be allowed to be credited to those projects as close to home as possible,” Flores said.

But Nitsos does not think trading fresh water for saltwater is a good idea.

“That’s really trading walnuts for oranges, not just apples for oranges,” he said. “We’re talking loss of marine habitat, and that’s what we’d like to get back. The first thing that I would look for is staying at least within the . . . marine system.”

The problem at Batiquitos Lagoon is that it is cut off from the ocean and tends to dry up and smell in the summertime. The restoration plan calls for massive dredging to deepen the 596-acre lagoon and installation of a mechanical system to sweep cobbles and sand from the lagoon’s mouth. The sweeping would prevent the mouth from closing and allow the lagoon to be nourished by daily infusions of saltwater.

This “tidal flushing,” as it is called, is expected to enhance fish and invertebrate populations and reduce the summertime odors.

The restoration project, however, is still in its preliminary stages.

Los Angeles port officials say that, before they chose to restore the Batiquitos Lagoon, they reviewed potential sites emphasizing those near Los Angeles.

The one Los Angeles County site on the list was the Los Cerritos wetlands in Long Beach. But it was ruled out for three reasons: the land is privately owned, which meant the port would have to buy it; the wetlands are dotted with oil wells, which meant the port would have to arrange for the wells to continue operating, and the area is not big enough to compensate for the loss of marine life in San Pedro Bay.

Despite Nitsos’ aversion to “trading walnuts for oranges,” port and environmental officials agree that the day may come when ports and other developers will not be able to replace precisely the type of environmental resources they destroy in Southern California.

The ports have extensive plans for development, with the so-called 2020 Plan--named for the year it extends to--calling for them to fill in about 2,400 acres.

Included in that plan, which is still in its preliminary stages, is the proposed 106-acre landfill that prompted the Batiquitos restoration. The Long Beach-based Pacific Texas Pipeline Co. plans to use the landfill to support a terminal for an 1,030-mile oil pipeline to refineries in Midland, Tex.

Nitsos said he does not believe there is enough coastal wetland in need of restoration to compensate for all 2,400 acres of landfill. Under the state’s formula, the Batiquitos restoration will, at a maximum, compensate for 445 acres of fill.

Port officials have discussed several possible alternatives, among them building artificial reefs to create a marine habitat rather than restoring existing sites, or establishing a “mitigation bank,” in which the ports would deposit money into an account and let the state handle restoration projects.