HUNTINGTON BEACH : Sierra Club Backs Bolsa Chica Trust

The Sierra Club, one of the nation’s largest and oldest environmental organizations, has endorsed the Bolsa Chica Land Trust’s effort to save all vacant land around the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

“We decided to become actively involved and lend our support to efforts to preserve Bolsa Chica because the Bolsa Chica Land Trust’s solution will maintain the entire area,” said Liz Merry, an official with the Sierra Club’s Angeles chapter in Los Angeles.

“Preserving the Bolsa Chica wetlands and its associated upland habitat is vitally important for maintaining biodiversity in Southern California,” Merry added.

Sierra Club officials said the organization’s support would include forming a task force “to serve as a rallying group” for persons working to save the Bolsa Chica area.

The land controversy involves a proposal by the Koll Co. to develop vacant acreage around the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. The Koll Co. plans call for building 4,884 new homes and for simultaneously restoring part of the degraded wetlands.

The Bolsa Chica Land Trust, an organization founded in June, 1992, opposes the Koll plan and seeks to buy all the land as a public preserve.

Flossie Horgan, president of the land trust, said Tuesday that the endorsement of the Sierra Club “is a great first-year birthday present.”

She said the land trust will officially celebrate its first anniversary on Monday from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Room B-8 of City Hall. The “birthday party,” which is free and open to the public, will include the showing of a new video entitled “Bolsa Chica--The Endangered Jewel.”