Environmentalists Offer Plan to End Batiquitos Lawsuit : Lagoon: If the scope of the dredging is scaled back, legal proceedings will stop, the groups say. But reaction is cool.

Environmental groups have offered to settle their lawsuit against the $30-million Batiquitos Lagoon restoration project if government officials agree to reduce the massive dredging that is planned.

However, it appeared Wednesday that officials would probably reject the Sierra Club and Audubon Society’s offer to settle out of court and avoid a trial that could delay work at the endangered 600-acre lagoon in Carlsbad.

Federal, state and local agencies believe that dredging 2.2 million to 3.1 million cubic yards of material will open the stagnating lagoon to ocean tidal flushing, stop it from filling with sediments and improve wildlife habitat.

The environmentalists’ suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court last May, claims the dredging would be highly experimental and actually would damage the lagoon’s environment by putting shallow wetlands under sea water.

The California Coastal Commission has already approved the restoration plan for the lagoon, one of the few state coastal habitats left for shore birds and waterfowl, including some rare species. The project is scheduled to begin in fall, 1993.

In new settlement talks, Sierra Club attorney Larry Silver proposed ending the litigation if dredging were limited to about 1.9 million cubic yards, which he called “a perfectly feasible solution” to the lagoon’s problems.

Silver made the offer after Rivertech Inc., a consulting firm that environmental groups turned to for an independent opinion, concluded that less dredging would minimize disruption to habitat, reduce sediment deposits and improve tidal action.

Rivertech’s president, Hasan Nouri, told Silver in a letter that “it would be very unfortunate” if heavier dredging were done and project supporters were willing to “accept losses to the existing habitat by constructing something that may or may not work.”

Attending the settlement negotiations, held quietly last week, were Silver and representatives of the Coastal Commission, the city of Carlsbad and the Port of Los Angeles.

The port would pay for the Batiquitos Lagoon restoration in order to compensate under state environmental law for dredging San Pedro Bay, where the port wants to add landfill for new container facilities. Improving the marine habitat at Batiquitos would offset the damage to fish habitat in San Pedro Bay.

Government officials haven’t formally responded to the settlement offer, and the Sierra Club’s local spokeswoman, Joan Jackson, said, “It’s kind of in their court now.”

She said that environmentalists do advocate taking action to help the lagoon, but that any dredging should be done in stages so experts can cautiously evaluate its impact.

But the initial reaction to the proposed settlement has been cool, and Gary Wayne, assistant planning director in Carlsbad, said Wednesday, “I would be surprised if they (other agencies) would recommend accepting the proposal from the Sierra Club.”

Wayne said the dredging plan advocated by the Sierra Club is “silly” and “ill-conceived” because it is not fundamentally different from the plan approved by the Coastal Commission.

Although less material would be dredged under the environmentalists’ proposal, the area to be dredged would be the same as under the approved plan, Wayne said.

The Sierra Club’s proposal, he said, wouldn’t dredge deep enough to ensure that sediment doesn’t build up and the lagoon’s mouth remains open to the ocean tidal flushing that’s needed to keep the lagoon from drying up.

“Everything would die,” Wayne said.

Coastal Commission analyst Bill Ponder, who has worked on the lagoon restoration plan, declined to comment on the settlement offer.

But he pointed out that experts from a number of government agencies believe the approved plan is best. Those agencies are the federal Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries, the California Department of Fish and Game and the State Lands Commission.

With sides appearing no closer to a settlement, the deadline is approaching for the Sierra Club to request a trial date.