Planting Crews Will Reseed Charred Slopes

Hoping to follow a light overnight rain, work crews armed with seed and mulch were scheduled to take to the city’s burned and barren hillsides today in an effort to head off damaging new mudslides.

Under cool, gray skies at Alta Laguna Park on Monday, contractors participating in the seeding effort began stockpiling materials and planning their seeding campaign along with officials of Woodward-Clyde, a Santa Ana company that has been hired as the city’s consultant.

The seeding effort is intended to anchor the soil and prevent mudslides from winter rains on the 250 acres of steep hillsides scorched bare by last month’s fire.

Although heavy rains two weeks ago sent mud sliding into 13 homes and the Pageant of the Masters’ Irvine Bowl, Carol Forrester, a Woodward-Clyde erosion and sediment control specialist, said Monday that she was hoping for some light precipitation.

“It will help us out, actually,” she said. “The stuff goes in a little better if the soil is wet.”

Weather permitting, six contractors were to begin applying various mixtures of seed and mulch to the ashen ground this morning. The mixtures they use will depend on differences in terrain and the accessibility of areas to various types of equipment, Forrest said.

“The idea is to provide positive erosion control (with the mulch) until the seed takes hold,” Forrest said.

Two mixes of seeds from natural vegetation will be used. One, recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service, includes seeds for buckwheat, California poppy, lupin, California sage and zorro annual fescue.

The other, recommended by the Native Plant Society, includes California poppy, lupin, purple needle grass and zorro annual fescue.