A Refuge Should Be a Refuge

In the face of growing opposition, the Seal Beach City Council has postponed until Nov. 21 a zoning measure that would allow a proposed $115-million, 149-acre housing project and golf course on one of the last undeveloped historic wetlands in Southern California. The council would do better to defer action until city officials and others have explored every reasonable option for restoring as much of the Hellman Ranch property as possible as a park and natural tidal marsh.

The tract includes the 10.5-acre Gum Grove Park, part of the ranch property leased to the city. In order to accommodate other environmental constraints on its project, Mola Development Co. had proposed to shrink the size of the park to 4.7 acres, but to replace many of the existing bluegum eucalyptus trees that are diseased and dying. The grove provides habitat for some endangered species as well as hawks, falcons, owls, heron and the monarch butterfly. Mola originally proposed the restoration of 20 acres of wetland on adjacent land as an environmental-mitigation measure, but state regulators said that the restored area had to be within the development plan itself.

Mola now has agreed to enlarge the park back to 6.8 acres, but none of its efforts have satisfied the increasing ranks of opponents who want more of the development restored as wetland, or to have no development at all. The present plans call for 660 condominiums on the present salt flats and 113 single-family homes on bluffs to the east. There also would be an 18-hole golf course and a driving range.

City officials say that they do not have money to restore the wetland, which was used in the 1960s for the dumping of dredging spoil from a harbor project. Now the Hellman Ranch property is on the priority list of wetland sites for possible restoration by the Port of Long Beach. The port has agreed to find and restore wetlands in return for permission to fill harbor waters for port expansion, but could not use the Hellman site so long as Mola had an option to buy the land.

Certainly the city of Seal Beach would like to have the tax revenue that would come from the housing development. But it should consider as well the long-range benefits of having a true rarity in all of Southern California: a natural wetland sanctuary where people as well as wildlife can go for refuge.