State Plan to Begin Laguna Reseeding Draws Criticism

State officials may begin reseeding 7,000 acres of burned coastal sage habitat north and northwest of the city as soon as Thursday, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry said Friday.

However, the proposal is not universally endorsed and has drawn criticism from some in the local environmental community.

Two local agencies have requested that land under their jurisdiction, a combined 2,912 acres, be exempted from the reseeding. And the controversy is expected to continue today when Laguna Beach city officials discuss whether to reseed 500 acres within the city limits.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t drop it on 90% of the area that was burned,” Dr. Peter Bowler, who teaches restorative ecology at UC Irvine, said of the plan for aerial reseeding of the fire-ravaged undeveloped hillsides. “We probably shouldn’t do this at all. I’m against the concept of introducing exotic genetics into an ecosystem.”

Nevertheless, in a meeting of state, federal and local officials Friday, reseeding of the majority of the fire-damaged hillsides outside the city limits was all but assured, said California Department of Forestry spokesman Doug Forrest.

If one last bureaucratic hurdle is cleared on Wednesday, the reseeding could begin as early as Thursday, he said. Still ahead is a consultation required between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service.

“The indications we get are favorable,” Forrest said. “It doesn’t look like (the consultation meeting) will derail the project.”

Forrest said “this wet period has been somewhat to our advantage. It has washed off some of the ash.”

Participating at Friday’s meeting at Laguna Beach City Hall were representatives of the city, Orange County, the state Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy, an environmental group. There were no objections raised to the state’s reseeding plans at the meeting, Forrest said.

Seeds to be dropped on the burned hillsides include native grasses and zorro fescue, he said.

But UCI’s Bowler said the fire-damaged areas “are inhabited by coastal sage scrub (and) that community is really best left to its own recovery under a natural system.”

“I personally disagree with proposals to use native species if they are derived off-site,” Bowler said. Though the seeds are described as “native,” he said, they were grown elsewhere, not locally.

“I believe the genetic landscape of our natural habitat is extremely important,” Bowler said.

Because of ecological concerns, the state Department of Fish and Game has advised the state not to seed the 82-acre Laguna Laurel Ecological Reserve.

State park officials have requested that Crystal Cove State Park also be spared the reseeding, another 2,830 burned acres.

“It is not reseeding ,” complained Elisabeth Brown, a biologist active in local ecological organizations. “It is seeding, and that’s the problem. They are seeding with stuff that isn’t there now. . . . Reseeding implies they are putting back what’s there now.”