One Wetland to Be Bulldozed, Another Planted : Nature: Last week’s transportation vote means a woodland will be destroyed for a freeway. But Caltrans workers are already nurturing a new one.

Voter approval of a massive transportation initiative will ensure the destruction of a six-acre woodland in Moorpark.

But Ventura County’s first man-made forest already is springing up to take its place along a creek surrounded by scrub-covered hills.

The passage last week of Proposition 111, which will double gas taxes statewide, ensures completion of a $50-million project connecting the Simi Valley Freeway with the Moorpark Freeway. Lying directly in the path of the bulldozers is a lush, wooded creekbed near College View Avenue.

State law requires that any important vegetation or wildlife habitat destroyed by a roads project must be replaced. So the state Department of Transportation has spent nearly $1 million during the past four months planting 5,000 native trees and shrubs in a 12-acre preserve near Arroyo Simi Creek just east of Moorpark.

Still in its infancy, the reserve resembles a large garden, with black and white irrigation lines snaking between cottonwood, elderberry, oak, sycamore and willow trees. Sections have been carefully marked off with stakes bearing blue and orange tags where Caltrans workers are monitoring growth.

Caltrans biologist Monica Finn is the creative force behind this nascent wilderness. She said she is a little nervous replacing what nature created with an overgrown garden fashioned with her own hands.

“We’re losing one, and we’re creating another, and we don’t really know if the plants will stay here,” Finn said. “That’s what’s exciting. . . . All of that is chance.”

But little of Finn’s work has been left to chance. Workers planted seven types of trees and built two irrigation ditches.

Much of the work designing the woods and creekbed was done by a private landscaper, but it will be up to Caltrans to keep it thriving for the next five years. Then the land may be turned over to Moorpark College as a back-yard nature center, Caltrans officials said.

The trees already are three feet tall and have a good chance of surviving, thanks to the ditches, pumps and a drip irrigation system that will continue to water them until their roots are able to tap into the ground water less than 10 feet below.

The project is called a wetlands, but instead of a swampy marshland the name evokes, trees and shrubs loom out of semi-dry brush.

Finn said she hopes the Caltrans project eventually will become a “mosaic of trees” that will blend in with the natural woods that are already home to rabbits and ground squirrels.

Caltrans officials expect to see most of the plants thrive on their own without help from humans.

Many of the trees planted in the area were cuttings from trees already found near the Arroyo Simi, said Caltrans engineer Frank Latham. The Arroyo Simi carries treated waste water from the Simi Valley sewage treatment plant.

The waste water actually is more beneficial than the ground water because it contains nitrates that plants need to survive, Latham said.

Even if the continued drought depletes underground water sources, waste water from the treatment plant will continue to flow in the creek, he said.

“As long as there’s people flushing their toilets, we’re going to have water,” Latham said.

The area is under the care of a private landscaper until next year. Then Caltrans will maintain the woodlands until it can make arrangements for the area to be preserved as a nature center.

Caltrans officials are negotiating with Moorpark College officials to take over the preservation of the 12-acre site, Finn said. If an agreement is reached, the area would be turned over to the college for research, she said.

“There’s a whole lot of interesting research that can be obtained from this wetlands,” Finn said.

“People could also be looking at what birds come into this new site,” she said. “It would be interesting to see what species come in.”

Fifty-five bird species already nest in the wooded area surrounding the Caltrans project, and another 35 are likely to nest in the area temporarily during fall and winter.

One endangered bird that could make its way back to Moorpark and other parts of eastern Ventura County is the Least Bell’s Vireo, a songbird that nests in riparian willow trees--those bordering streams. The bird was last spotted near the Arroyo Simi four years ago.

Environmentalists say the preservation of wetlands in Moorpark would be welcomed by bird watchers and conservationists who see habitats for birds being erased across the county.

The Least Bell’s Vireo has disappeared from most of the county, but still nests in the Santa Clara riverbed near Fillmore, Audubon Society member Karl Krause said. The survival of the songbird “is a pretty good indication of the state of the riparian habitat, and that’s pretty poor in this county,” he said.

Moorpark College environmental science professor Muthena Naseri said the man-made woods also are a convenient spot where students can observe nature at work. The area could be incorporated into a field study to observe the effects of air pollution and stream erosion, Naseri said.

Negotiations between Caltrans and Moorpark College are expected to last through this month. If negotiations succeed, environmental science or biology classes using the Caltrans project could be incorporated into the academic schedule as early as next fall, the professor said.

“We will have a ready-built laboratory next door,” he said.