Dedication Held for Bolsa Chica Conservancy

On a rain-cleansed promontory overlooking Orange County’s largest and most important wetlands, a new organization was formally chartered Tuesday afternoon to oversee the Bolsa Chica preserve.

Called the Bolsa Chica Conservancy, the five-member, nonprofit group held its dedication in a tent outdoors. About 200 yards away, coveys of migratory ducks bobbed on the rain-swollen wetlands the conservancy was formed to protect.

The Bolsa Chica preserve is a historic salt- and freshwater marsh area on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway, between Warner Avenue and Golden West Street. For more than two decades environmentalists have fought to preserve the area. The breakthrough came last May, when the landowner, Signal Landmark, agreed to a compromise plan that calls for keeping about 1,100 of the 1,635 acres as undeveloped wetlands.

The coalition that hammered out that compromise last year formally became a permanent body--the conservancy--on Tuesday. It will now implement the wetlands agreement.

“History is being made today,” said Councilman Peter M. Green as he faced an audience of about 35 people and looked out upon the shimmering waters of the wetlands. Green, a biology instructor at Golden West College, said that the city, county and state, by joining private organizations in the coalition effort to preserve the wetlands, were reversing a destructive social trend that began with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century. “We’re changing that trend,” he said. “What an opportunity we have!”

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, representing county government, formed the breakthrough coalition a year ago. The four other coalition members were Peter Denniston, chief executive officer of Signal Landmark; Shirley Dettloff, president of the environmental group Amigos de Bolsa Chica; Green, representing city government, and Dan Gorfain, representing the State Lands Commission.

The new conservancy’s board of directors is composed of Wieder, as chairwoman; Denniston, Dettloff, Green and James Trout, assistant executive officer of the State Lands Commission.

The conservancy board voted unanimously to hire Cypress College biology instructor Victor Leipzig as its executive director. Leipzig is a Huntington Beach resident and a member of the city’s Planning Commission.

“What we’re building here today is the foundation for a lasting institution,” Leipzig told the audience.

In an interview, Leipzig said the conservancy will become a holding body for the 800 acres of wetlands to be donated by Signal Landmark. “The State Lands Commission is currently the owner for the 300 acres (of wetlands) currently in the preserve,” Leipzig said. “It’s likely they will become the property owner to the remaining acreage to be added to the preserve. But the state does not want to take over that land until it is restored (to wetlands condition), and the restoration could extend to 20 to 50 years.”

Leipzig said removal of functioning oil wells is the major problem. Pointing to several wells dotting the wetlands area, Leipzig said: “As long as the price of oil remains high, they will continue to drill and take petroleum out. If there is a prolonged drop in oil prices, these facilities will come out sooner. The Amigos de Bolsa Chica are not that concerned about the existing oil wells here because, as you can see, they don’t disturb the wildlife that much. We’re not trying to push the oil operators away. But we can’t start restoration of many of these acres until the oil wells are removed.

“Exactly how the restoration effort will be funded, designed and managed is still forming,” he said. “The conservancy will certainly have a role in that.”

Restoration involves bringing ocean water back into the areas that once were natural sea marsh until civilization intruded.

Leipzig said that while the restoration of the wetlands will take many decades, the important thing is that the land will not be developed into housing or other uses while it is being phased out of oil production. Signal Landmark, under the compromise reached last May, will only build houses on bluffs and less environmentally sensitive land bordering the wetlands area.