MOORPARK : College District to Acquire Wetlands

Moorpark College students will be able to study the songbirds and aquatic wildlife in a 20-acre wetland area created as part of a state highway project off the Simi Valley Freeway.

The Ventura County Community College District agreed Tuesday night to take over the property’s deed five years after the California Department of Transportation has fully established and maintained the area.

Construction of a link between the Simi Valley Freeway and the Moorpark Freeway will destroy a lush, wooded creek bed near College View Avenue in Moorpark, and state law requires that any important wildlife habitat destroyed by a roads project be replaced.

Caltrans has spent four months planting cottonwood, sycamore and willow trees near Arroyo Simi Creek just east of Moorpark. Other native shrubs and an irrigation system will help attract the wildlife, said Monica Finn, a natural science specialist with the department.

Students at the neighboring college will have access to the outdoor classroom, said Tom Kimberling, the school’s vice chancellor of administrative services.

“What I like to call the Moorpark College Nature Center will serve as a convenient outdoor laboratory,” said Muthena Naseri, a professor of environmental science who helped acquire the land for the school. “Potentially, it could be used by zoology students to observe the habitat. . . . It could be used by environmental science students investigating concepts of ecosystems firsthand.”

Caltrans will maintain a footbridge and a fence surrounding the area as part of the agreement, he said.

When Caltrans’ role ends in April, 1995, Finn said, the school “will just let nature take over.”