Groups File Suit to Stop Dredging Plans for Lagoon : Environment: Sierra Club, Audubon Society say state-backed plan for Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad will endanger habitat.

Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court to stop the state-approved $30-million plan to dredge the ecologically sensitive Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad.

The Sierra Club and the Audubon Society claim in the suit that the California Coastal Commission’s plan to preserve the lagoon would instead endanger habitat by putting shallow wetlands under sea water.

Changing the habitat, according to the suit, “is an extremely experimental undertaking that may well ravage the lagoon’s ecological balances and result in the creation of habitat that is not satisfactory in any respect.”

Sierra Club spokeswoman Joan Jackson said Tuesday, “It will totally change the existing biology” and “the species of birds there now will not be able to use the habitat.”

The suit, filed quietly last week, names the Coastal Commission, the city of Carlsbad, the city of Los Angeles, the Port of Los Angeles and the Harbor Commission.

It asks the court to force the Coastal Commission to reverse what the commission calls its lagoon “enhancement project.”

The plan’s supporters believe that dredging more than 3 million cubic yards of material from the lagoon would restore ocean tidal flushing to an area that is often muddy or dry.

The Coastal Commission concedes that some existing habitat will be lost if sea water flows in, but officials say enough habitat will remain to attract the rare or endangered birds that use the lagoon for feeding or breeding.

The lagoon is one of 19 high-priority wetlands identified by the California Department of Fish and Game.

Paul Webb, a Coastal Commission analyst who worked on the plan, said Tuesday that increasing tidal flushing “keeps sediments from building up in the lagoon. The tidal flushing also maintains a marine environment” for fishery.

Another supporter of dredging, Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis, defended the plan Tuesday, saying it would “balance” the needs of humans and wildlife.

Lewis said tidal flushing will both support marine life and give nearby homeowners a “visual concept”--in other words, residents will get to view more water and fewer mud flats in the lagoon.

Lewis said an influx of ocean water will also solve the problem of “stench” in the lagoon. “You’re not destroying that area,” Lewis said.

However, the environmentalists’ lawsuit finds no satisfaction in the Coastal Commission plan, which was approved March 12.

It points out that, although there is siltation and no regular tidal flushing, the lagoon is still “a functioning wetlands system that provides valuable seasonal habitat for migratory waterfowl and wading birds.”

Further, the suit complains about the role that Los Angeles, its port and harbor authority supposedly played in the dredging plan.

The Coastal Commission has previously approved a Port of Los Angeles proposal to dredge 11.28 million cubic yards of material in San Pedro Bay. Because that plan would have a major environmental affect, state law requires that the port find a way to offset the damage.

To do that, the suit claims the port proposed a plan to restore Batiquitos Lagoon to mitigate the environmental impact in San Pedro Bay.

The lagoon plan “was formulated to meet the need of the City of Los Angeles to obtain mitigation credits allowing it to proceed with a large dredging project in San Pedro Harbor, Long Beach,” according to the suit. Although the lagoon plan has been reviewed and approved by the Coastal Commission, the port is paying for the dredging.

Also, the suit alleges, the Coastal Commission failed to indicate publicly that commission members had been privately lobbied by representatives of Los Angeles, the city’s Harbor Commission and Hillman Properties.

Hillman Properties “is developing property from which Batiquitos Lagoon can be viewed,” according to the suit.

Sierra Club spokeswoman Jackson said the Coastal Commission is “required to report any lobbying at the hearing before the vote. This was not done.”

The purpose in reporting any lobbying is to allow public discussion and rebuttal, said the suit, which accuses the Coastal Commission of acting “unlawfully and in excess of its authority” in approving the lagoon plan.