Pair Fight to Keep Canyon From Being Turned Into Ballparks

Art Padgett and Charles Gorenstein acknowledge that Chapparosa Canyon, a narrow, seven-acre gorge hemmed in by rows of new stucco houses, is not much to look at.

Home to several deer, a few hawks, toads and crawfish and some scattered clumps of bulrushes, the small canyon is not as visibly stirring as the expansive Laguna Canyon or the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

But the grassy slice of rural countryside, a reminder of what Laguna Niguel once was, has stirred the two men to launch a campaign to save it.

Chapparosa Canyon, the largest wetlands canyon that remains in rapidly growing Laguna Niguel, is scheduled for extinction under a city plan to convert the shallow gorge into ball fields.

City officials have said there are not enough playing fields in Laguna Niguel, and, as a consequence, hundreds of youngsters have been unable to join organized sports.

Pledging their opposition to the project, Gorenstein and Padgett have founded the Laguna Niguel Environmental Coalition and are pressing for preservation of the canyon as natural open space.

Padgett, an engineering consultant, and Gorenstein, a UC Irvine professor of neural pharmacology, are lobbying to see the canyon transformed into an educational nature center instead of baseball diamonds.

“This canyon is a diamond in the rough,” said Gorenstein, who suggests planting native California shrubs, grasses and trees to create a living museum for area schoolchildren.

“It could be a showplace for Laguna Niguel,” Gorenstein said.

The canyon, between Street of the Golden Lantern and Niguel Road, is fed by an underground spring that drains into Salt Creek and eventually into the ocean.

It is part of the 260-acre Salt Creek Community Park, much of which is now undeveloped but may in the future be used for a variety of recreational purposes, City Manager Warren S. (Ben) Benson said.

The canyon, next to the 18-acre Chapparosa Park, would be filled in with 130,000 cubic feet of dirt from Monarch Beach, and two ballparks would be built on the resulting flatland as an addition to the four existing fields in Chapparosa Park, Benson said.

Australia-based Qintex America Inc. has agreed to complete the $2.6-million ball fields as part of an agreement with the city for a development project in Monarch Beach, Benson said. He said that despite the company’s recent financial problems, the agreement remains intact.

Representatives of Qintex, which backed out of a plan to develop a Dana Point resort in November, could not be reached for comment.

Gorenstein and Padgett, however, said they have repeatedly proposed that the city find an alternate site for the ball fields.

The public comment period on the project’s environmental impact report ended Jan. 1, but coalition members have spent the past few weeks passing out thousands of flyers to drum up support for their cause.

They have also escorted City Council members on a tour of the canyon and have urged residents to send letters of opposition to City Hall. So far, Benson said, city officials have received about 150 statements of opposition.

The pair are scheduled to meet with Mayor Patricia Bates today to discuss their plan to build a nature center.

Padgett and Gorenstein’s effort is the latest in a growing trend in the South County to preserve what is left of undeveloped areas around suburban neighborhoods. Slow growth, in fact, has been a major political issue among San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano officials, who have been faced with cries to protect the shrinking open space.

In recent months, the San Juan Capistrano City Council passed a law to preserve its miles of ridgelines and announced a plan to turn 120 acres of land north of Mission San Juan Capistrano into a “Central Park.”

Trabuco Canyon and Laguna Beach residents have been fighting development plans in their communities, and San Clemente officials have criticized a proposal to build a regional airport in the hilly country north of their city.

“The public is becoming more and more sensitive to issues of environment,” Gorenstein said. “We talk about saving the rain forests and the whales. But there is something wrong if we can’t save a simple canyon in our own back yard.”

Padgett added: “City Council members don’t appear as sensitive to environmental issues as we thought they would be. It’s almost as if they were pro-development.”

Several city officials said they have seriously been considering the coalition’s suggestions but have not made up their minds.

Councilmen James F. Krembas, Paul M. Christiansen and Thomas W. Wilson said they support the concept of a nature park but also see a need for more recreational facilities for youngsters.

“I take exception to the comments that any of the council members are not responsive to the concerns over the environment,” said Krembas, principal of San Clemente High School.

“On the one side, I understand their concerns. But on the other side, we need more ball fields.”

Krembas said that he would prefer to relocate the playing fields. “I consider myself a strong advocate for the environment. That canyon is a unique area,” he said.

But city officials have so far been unable to find a suitable alternative site for the playing fields, Krembas said. “We will have to take a good hard look at the issue.”