More Battles Seen Over Wildlife Refuge : Land use: Activists who turned back a plan for teachers’ housing in Chatsworth Reservoir say the site is too beautiful to be developed.

Helen Treend felt the breeze as it blew across the 1,320-acre Chatsworth Reservoir. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “It comes in every day from Antelope Valley around 4 p.m. and blows the smog back to Los Angeles.”

Treend climbed a sandstone boulder on a grassy hill overlooking the reservoir, which was emptied for improvements in 1969 and not refilled because of earthquake-safety concerns. It has became an unofficial wildlife refuge. Looking across shrubs, small trees and grids of San Fernando Valley homes, Treend could see Mt. Baldy, the Santa Monica Mountains and the Simi Hills.

“Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” she asked. “This is one of the last remaining open spaces in our area. It should be shared by all, not just those who overlook the reservoir or who have a special interest.”

Treend, the president of Save Orcutt Community Inc.--a group founded to preserve a ranch once held by landowner William Orcutt--has successfully fought for two decades against plans to use the reservoir for a golf course, Little League fields and helicopter pilot training.

Ten days ago, she took up the crusade once again when the mayor’s office announced it would consider building 500 low-cost homes in the reservoir basin to attract teachers to city schools and professors to UCLA.

The immediate uproar from neighborhood groups and environmentalists persuaded the mayor’s office to forgo the site, although city officials said the concept to provide incentive housing for teachers remains alive.

The reservoir, southwest of the intersection of Plummer Street and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, is owned by the Department of Water and Power. It is surrounded by a chain-link fence and closed except for an annual Audubon Society bird count and occasional tours, foot races or film shoots.

The DWP keeps the acreage locked up to protect wildlife that includes hundreds of migrating Canada geese, 23 deer and bobcats, coyotes, hawks, falcons, herons and egrets.

The animals find refuge in a 10-acre pond, on acres of chaparral and among oak, eucalyptus, willow and cherry trees. A wide, ash-gray oak tree that stands just outside the reservoir is 500 years old.

“When people say there is nothing in this reservoir, you can see why I get upset,” Treend said. “To me, this is the most important ecosystem in the west San Fernando Valley. It has a great diversity. There are many types of wildlife.”

Treend’s organization has collected 7,000 signatures urging that funding be provided for tours and that the land be turned into an official wildlife sanctuary and open-air classroom. The group will seek direction on how to get funding from Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who has helped other groups trying to buy land for public use, she said.

Treend drove the gravel roads on the dam’s perimeter one day last week as the craggy sandstone formations of the Simi Hills cast shadows on the land. Hundreds of Canada geese swam in the pond, shielded from the road by high shrubs. The geese, flying in V formations, begin arriving Oct. 1; more than 1,000 of the big birds often visit the park daily into the late winter.

“They get their feet wet and muddy. It’s soothing,” Treend said. “They are going to Mexico and they stay here because they like open fields. That is why this area is so important.

“Another thing is that they don’t sit in one section of the reservoir. People think they can take a section and develop it and it won’t hurt anything. But that’s not true because the geese are constantly in motion while they’re here.”

Leaving the pond, Treend spotted an empty beer can in the grass and picked it up.

“We have breaks in the fence from car accidents,” she said. “People come in because it’s beautiful and they leave things.”

Passing garages, old cars and porches used for storage in the back yards of homes on the other side of the fence, Treend arrived at a kiln she said was used by Indians centuries ago to make mortar for the San Fernando Mission.

Treend walked up another trail leading to the highest hill in the basin. She nodded toward a pointed hoof print in the mud. “These are deer tracks,” she said.

The top of the hill was grassy and surrounded by sandstone bolders. In the center was a large, flat stone with two holes used centuries ago by Indian women to leech the acid off acorns and to grind them. Archeologists also say Indian men peered from the boulders, watching for animals in the plain before descending to hunt them.

Treend said some people view the reservoir as the selfish preserve of a few neighbors and argue it is too valuable to leave undeveloped.

“That’s why we’re working so hard,” she said. “We’re not a special interest group. Basically we want it for everyone to see.”

As a teacher for nearly 20 years, Treend can sympathize with the argument by the mayor’s office that new teachers need low-cost housing. “The problem is that the salary of teachers who have been on the job one to five years is such that they have a hard time finding housing for their families,” said Art Gastlelum, director of economic development for Mayor Tom Bradley. “What can we do to assist that effort if we have bright minds that we want to teach but they are looking at the economics and it doesn’t make sense?”

Despite the decision to abandon the reservoir as a site for teacher housing, skyrocketing real estate values in the western San Fernando Valley will continue to create pressure on city officials to make use of the land. Granada Hills real estate appraiser John Wright estimated that selling the reservoir would bring the city roughly $100,000 an acre, or more than $1 billion.

Which means Treend and other environmentalists may face a significant challenge in their battle to protect the reservoir land.

“If people who want to build there went on a nature history walk and learned to appreciate the natural values that are there--the animals, the plants, the beauty of the landscape and the archeological sites--then the money argument falls through the pavement,” she said.

Chatsworth Reservoir The 1,32-acre Chatsworth Reservoir-home to wildlife ranging from deer to bobcats-is the object of a movement to ensure its preservation and open it to the public. 1. Grassy hills where Indians once gathered to scout game. 2. Ten-acre pond wher wildlife gathers. 3. Grove of historic oaks, including 500-year-old oak tree.