Coalition Warns of Wetlands Loss : Environment: O.C. activists claim that Bush’s plan would threaten up to 50% of Bolsa Chica area.

Up to 60% of California’s wetlands could vanish under a “devastating” Bush Administration proposal to narrow the definition of what land qualifies for wetlands protection, a statewide environmental coalition warned Monday.

Coastal estuaries from Santa Barbara to Orange County, as well as freshwater wetlands in San Bernardino County, could be among those at risk, said the newly organized Campaign to Save California Wetlands.

In Orange County, Terry Dolton, president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, said Monday that if the proposal becomes law, “up to 50% of what is now the Bolsa Chica wetlands would no longer be classified (by the federal government) as wetlands.”

Dolton said the change would not affect Koll Co.’s proposal to donate 800 acres of privately owned land at Bolsa Chica in exchange for government approval of the company’s proposed 4,884-home development there.

But Dolton said the federal change would make it harder for environmental groups to protect wetlands and get federal grants for them.

“It would be like opening up the back door,” Dolton said.

According to the statewide coalition, nearly 60% of the remaining 143,000 acres in the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento Delta area could also lose wetlands protection.

“It’s a sneak attack on America’s wetlands,” Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae) said Monday at a Playa del Rey news conference called by the wetlands campaign, a coalition of 70 state environmental groups.

The warnings were based on a study prepared for the coalition by LSA Associates Inc. that for the first time attempted to estimate the impact of the White House proposal on California wetlands.

“It’s just devastating,” said Ruth Lansford of Friends of Ballona Wetlands, one of the coalition members. She claimed that the 170-acre wetland at Playa del Rey could shrink to 3 acres.

The 60% estimate was the coalition’s finding; the study offers no such overall figure.

“We made no estimate like that,” said Rob Schonholtz, a wetlands specialist with the firm. “There would be an effect, but I’m not sure I would say it would be that extensive.”

A 25% to 33% loss would be his guess--still a substantial figure in view of the fact that about 91% of California’s wetlands have already been lost to development.

But Schonholtz agreed that virtually any “degraded” wetlands--those that do not have water on the surface at least 21 days a year--are threatened with loss of legal protections. The study’s scientists noted that the 21-day requirement has “no scientific rationale.”

Among the “degraded” wetlands in jeopardy, Schonholtz said, are some at Bolsa Chica, Huntington Beach and Cerritos.

Other wetlands not mentioned in the study are also at risk, according to those close to the study. For example, only 5 of the 25 wetland acres at Hellman Ranch at Seal Beach would qualify under the Bush plan. Five acres or less of the 50 acres of freshwater wetland meadows near Baldwin Lake in San Bernardino County would qualify.

That meadow is the habitat for four known endangered species--two plants, a bird and a fish--and for another six species that are candidates for endangered status.

In Santa Barbara County, no more than 5 of the 12 acres of wetlands at the Los Carneros site near the airport at Goleta would qualify, one study researcher said.

The White House plan has been under sustained criticism nationally. Opponents have accused Bush of going back on his campaign pledge of “no net loss” of wetlands, and critics have said the reclassification proposal would open millions of acres to development, from the Alaskan tundra to Florida’s Everglades.

In Orange County, Amigos de Bolsa Chica has launched a campaign of writing letters to the White House and to Congress in an effort to halt the proposed change in wetlands’ definition. Huntington Beach Mayor Peter M. Green, a former president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, on Oct. 7 attempted to get the rest of the City Council to support a resolution protesting the Bush Administration’s proposed wetlands change. But the resolution failed to pass, 2 to 3, after Councilman Don MacAllister, who led the opposition, said he worried about “confiscation of current property owners’ rights.”

Monday’s criticism by the statewide coalition came as the Dec. 14 deadline neared for public comments on possible revisions to the Administration’s proposal. The new study was seen as a further attempt to encourage opposition to the Administration’s proposal.