Environment : Notes about your surroundings.

Wetlands--Amigos de Bolsa Chica, the volunteer group that has battled for the preservation of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, will meet twice this week in Room B-7 at Huntington Beach City Hall, 2000 Main St.

The first meeting, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, will focus on restoration alternatives for the wetlands. The second, at 7 p.m. Thursday, will address plans for a linear park. Both meetings are open to the public.

Meanwhile, the Amigos group continues to offer its free monthly walking tours of the 110-acre ecological reserve. Thousands of wintering shore birds and waterfowl can be viewed on the walks, with groups leaving every 20 minutes from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on the first Saturday of each month.

The 1 1/2-hour tours depart from the reserve parking lot on Pacific Coast Highway across from the entrance to Bolsa Chica State Beach, between Golden West Street and Warner Avenue. Sturdy walking shoes are recommended. This season’s tours continue each month through March.

After 15 years of controversy over the future of the wetlands, developers and environmentalists reached a compromise agreement earlier this year that included protection and restoration of 1,100 wetland acres while allowing construction of thousands of homes. A local delegation traveled to Washington last month to seek federal support for the plan. The delegation was led by Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder and included representatives of the Amigos, Signal Landmark developers, the Huntington Beach City Council and the California State Lands Commission.

The compromise wetlands plan, which drew praise from the EPA’s Wetlands Protection Office, is entering the beginning of a lengthy permit process.

River Parks--Members of a 100-member group called Friends of the Santa Ana River are awaiting a report from county planners on proposed development of two adjoining parks along the east side of the Santa Ana River, from Adams Avenue to 19th Street in Costa Mesa.

Members of the group, along with state Fish and Game Department biologists, contested a preliminary plan previewed earlier this year, primarily over a proposed golf course. “They went back to the drawing board,” said Friends spokesman Dick Kust. A new plan is expected after the first of next year.

The sites of Fairview and Talbert regional parks are now degraded in sections, but include a 20-acre willow grove and shallow freshwater pond that covers several acres during the rainy season. Environmentalists would like to see the sites developed as a natural park, preserving and enhancing the area’s wildlife value (ideally, with the restoration of parts of the area as freshwater marsh).

The Friends are also watching plans for a privately owned parcel stretching south from 19th Street, on which the landowner would like to build a high-density housing development. Kust and others hope at least some of the riverfront land can be included in a park that would then stretch to the river mouth, where the Army Corps of Engineers plans to restore 90 acres of salt marsh as mitigation for wetlands lost in river-widening projects.