Developer Must Clear Batiquitos : Environment: Hillman Properties illegally dumped rocks in the lagoon last year to prevent it from draining.

A Carlsbad developer that illegally dumped rocks into Batiquitos Lagoon to stop water from draining out--a move critics charge was made to ensure that homeowners and prospective home buyers would have a scenic view--must remove the rocks.

The California Coastal Commission on Tuesday approved a permit for Hillman Properties, developer of the 1,000-acre Aviara residential resort community, to remove hundreds of tons of rocks Hillman dumped in March, 1991.

Although Hillman applied for the permit, it did so under pressure from the commission and the city of Carlsbad, which fear the rocks could be dangerous to swimmers and surfers.

Paul Webb, a commission planner, said Hillman put the rocks at the mouth of the 600-acre lagoon without government permission. Aviara is on the lagoon’s north side.

The lagoon mouth, normally blocked by a natural cobblestone berm, had been opened the day before by the Leucadia County Water District to release water and thus prevent flooding of its nearby sewage pump station.

But, after Hillman deposited the rocks to again block the lagoon, “ocean currents, wave action, coupled with (flood) water blew this rock out into the ocean,” said Webb.

Now, he said, underwater divers have found some of the 1- to 2-foot-diameter rocks as far as 250 feet into the surf.

“It may be something of a hazard to someone in the water,” Webb said.

Hillman was penalized with violation notices from both the Coastal Commission, for failure to get a state permit, and the city, for violating grading ordinances, said Gary Wayne, the city’s assistant planning director.

Officials from both agencies have wanted Hillman to get rid of the rocks and restore the natural cobblestone berm.

The trouble is, “I don’t know how you are going to remove it (the rock) without opening the lagoon now,” Wayne said.

Opening the lagoon could deplete the water supply there during the coming summer, when it is a valuable nesting and shallow-water feeding area for a variety of migratory shore birds.

While admitting that the boulders were dumped without a permit, company vice president and general manager Larry Clemens defended the action, and said Hillman may not be responsible for all the rocks.

Others, including government agencies, have also placed rocks there, he said.

“We don’t know whose rocks they are,” Clemens said. “They might have been there 100 years, for all we know. But, in any case, we have agreed to remove some rocks in the specific area the (commission) staff has pointed out.”

His company acted without a permit, he said, because the lagoon was opened by the water district on a Friday afternoon, the commission staff was gone for the weekend, and “thousands of gallons a minute are emptying out of the lagoon. The only thing to do was place the rocks and apply for a permit later.”

Clemens said the company notified the commission of its action the following Monday.

But local Sierra Club spokeswoman Joan Jackson takes a different view of Hillman’s actions.

Clemens “was trying to sell houses,” Jackson said. “Larry Clemens likes to keep a lot of water in there so it looks like a nice lake so he can sell his houses.

“The problem with that is these are very delicate ecosystems and they shouldn’t be managed to accommodate the financial interests of a few,” she said.

One solution, Jackson said, might be to educate residents about the value of the natural lagoon, including the periodically exposed mud flats that furnish nesting areas to some species of birds.

“I happen to think mud flats are beautiful,” she said.

“I really believe if the public understands what’s at stake here, and they realize how valuable these resources are . . . they would be more inclined to protect them and less inclined to tinker and make boat ponds out of them,” Jackson said.

Meanwhile, Hillman Properties, along with the Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation, has an application pending for a coastal permit to legally install a 5-foot-high cobblestone berm at the lagoon mouth to stabilize water levels.