Wetlands Backers Hope Spill Will Result in Zoning

Environmentalists said Friday they hope to ride a wave of publicity generated by the recent oil spill to achieve long-sought protective zoning for the coastal wetlands.

Since the Feb. 7 oil spill, national news media have frequently referred to the endangered wetlands in Huntington Beach. That attention, the environmentalists said, will make it difficult for the City Council to turn its back on protective zoning for 225 acres of marshland between Beach Boulevard and the Santa Ana River.

While the oil spill danger was great, inaction by city government in protecting those wetlands is a more serious threat, the environmentalists said on Friday.

“A far greater danger . . . is the possibility of commercial or residential development” on those wetlands, said Chuck Gant, president of Friends of the Huntington Beach Wetlands.

Wetlands are marshy areas that serve as home for a wide range of rare plants, birds and small animals. Few wetlands remain in Southern California because of urban growth.

Gordon Smith, chairman of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, added: “Mother Nature is remarkably resilient, and the wetlands would eventually recover from the effects of an oil spill. But the destructive consequences of development on the wetlands are permanent.”

The City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the unzoned wetlands for its meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

Environmentalists have been trying for the past 10 years to get the City Council to put a “conservation zoning” on the marshlands. That type of zoning would restrict commercial and residential development.

Most of the 225 acres in the marsh area have been cut off by Pacific Coast Highway from getting tidal water from the ocean. But almost all of the acreage can be restored to true wetlands conditions, as has 25 acres in the Talbert Channel area, environmentalists have said.

Gant said he hoped the City Council may be swayed by a compromise the environmentalists reached with a special study group appointed last fall by the council.

That compromise calls for giving one major landowner the option for limited oil exploration in the wetlands area on a one-acre site, Gant said.

Nonetheless, heavy debate is expected at the Tuesday council meeting, according to other environmentalists. Some council members have said they believe that “conservation zoning” would constitute illegal seizure of the marshlands from its private owners. The city then might have to pay millions of dollars in compensation to the landowners, they say.

Gant, however, said legal opinions given by two lawyers hired to study the matter have said the proposed zoning would not be a seizure of the lands.