SPILLOVER : THE PAST : Development, Disasters Take Wetlands Toll

The disastrous oil spill at McGrath State Beach that damaged several acres of valuable marshland was only the latest blow to Ventura County’s fragile and dwindling wetlands--ecosystems so complex that they take decades to recover.

Most of the losses in recent years, however, have been to development rather than accident.

Portions of wetlands, which support wildlife and act as a natural filtering system to purify ground water, have been gobbled up by a new jail, a widened freeway, a new freeway connector, farming along the Santa Clara River and sand and gravel mining.

And many, many more acres are threatened.

Developments are either planned or proposed that would surround, destroy or otherwise affect wetlands in the canyons of Whiteface Mountain north of Simi Valley, on 500 acres in Moorpark, at Ahmanson Ranch east of Thousand Oaks and along the white sands of Ormond Beach in Oxnard.

If there are heavy rains in the coming months, the wetlands at Point Mugu, the county’s largest coastal marsh, could be threatened by runoff of silt from the nearby mountains denuded in the Green Meadow wildfire. There has been no major damage yet, but the county has not yet experienced its full rainy season.

“Wetlands are so scarce in California anymore that any we have left are valuable,” said Heidi Togstad, environmental specialist with the California Department of Fish and Game’s oil spill prevention and response team.

Officials of Berry Petroleum acknowledged that before Christmas, about 84,000 gallons of heavy crude oil spilled into a drainage ditch that feeds McGrath Lake. A pump was switched on at the lake that sent some of the oil through an underground line, operated by Berry Petroleum subsidiary Bush Oil, that emptied into an ocean outlet.

Togstad, who is in charge of the natural resources damage assessment at McGrath State Beach, said it may take months or years to assess the damage to the wetlands there that surround tiny McGrath Lake.

To restore the wetlands may take decades, she said.

“It all depends on the extent of damage, and we don’t know that yet,” she said.

The heavy, thick, sticky oil that workers removed from the lake with pitchforks and shovels, carries both positive and negative implications for long-term cleanup of the site, Togstad said.

*

On one hand, the oil’s consistency prevented it from deeply penetrating lakeside brush, sparing the native tules and other reeds that surround the east side of the lake and provide refuge for ducks and other waterfowl.

But the heavy crude oil clings to the salt grass and any dry parts of plants it touches, and suffocates many of the animals that come in contact with oily water.

“The oil spread from bank to bank, but at least it didn’t get as far back into the tules as it could have,” Togstad said.

As Togstad and her team continue to assess damage to the area, others will begin working on a plan to restore it.

The restoration plan will be written, implemented and monitored under the supervision of Fish and Game, said Pete Bontadelli, administrator of the office of spill prevention and response, which shares responsibility with the U.S. Coast Guard as lead agencies in the investigation and cleanup of the spill.

“Berry Petroleum will ultimately be responsible for paying for it and it will always be monitored by state and federal agencies,” Bontadelli said.

*

He said damage to the nearby beach will probably be short term because the thick oil was easily picked up from the sand in clumps.

Most of the oil that washed up on the beach has already been removed.

Wetlands are a matter of greater concern because they are more complex, more difficult to clean up. Workers were attempting to draw the oil into the center of McGrath Lake with large booms spread on the water, trying to keep the oil away from the lake’s edge and the surrounding wetlands.

But some of the oil clung to the reeds. And as more of the oil was pumped out of the lake and the water level lowered, more of the lakeside vegetation was exposed and fouled with oil, said Jim Hardwick, a biologist with Fish and Game who was working on the cleanup.

“The key is to minimize the fluctuation of the lake,” he said.

In other areas of the county, the destruction of wetlands is less dramatic, but just as damaging, said Cathy Brown, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There have been recent cases in which at least two growers extended their citrus orchards farther into the flood plain of the Santa Clara River than legally allowed, Brown said, destroying wetlands habitat along the river’s edge.

In addition, there are proposals from sand and gravel miners to excavate some seven miles along the Santa Clara, about 50 miles of which runs through Ventura County on its way to the sea.

“That’s the largest cumulative impact I can think of,” Brown said.

The Simi Valley Whiteface Mountain development is neither near the ocean nor along a major river. But the canyons collect water and form seasonal streams that create marshy areas, which in turn support wildlife, Brown said.

“Removing a small wetlands which is a relatively small part of an open space can have a disproportionately large effect on wildlife,” she said. “All wildlife need water.”

But Jim Lightfoot, advance planning manager for the city of Simi Valley, said the wetlands areas in the project will be protected.

“Our intent is to preserve the riparian character of the wetlands to the greatest extent possible,” Lightfoot said.

The project’s developer has agreed to spend $3 million to create wildlife corridors so that mule deer, coyotes, gray foxes, bobcats and other creatures of the chaparral can still reach the marshy areas.

At the Carlsberg Development in Moorpark, developers want to put 552 homes on 500 acres, which would essentially wipe out a vernal pool, a pond that fills in the spring and nurtures a unique set of plants and animals, Brown said.

“They attract a number of wading birds and amphibians,” Brown said. In addition, the vernal pool also supports a type of grass that is being considered for listing as an endangered species.

The site of the new Ventura County Jail, under construction along the Santa Clara River near Santa Paula, does not include habitat of particularly high value for endangered species, as some opponents of the project have said, Brown said.

“Sometimes people who don’t want a development will rally around the wetlands when they didn’t care about them before,” she said. She said claims that there were bald eagles nesting on the jail site came from “overzealous anti-development types.”

But the site and more land nearby does have a small amount of valuable wetlands habitat, and the small losses add up, she said.

The Ahmanson Ranch proposal calls for businesses and 3,050 homes on 2,800 acres in the rolling Simi Hills and would wipe out 338 acres of rare needle grass and eliminate wildlife habitat along Las Virgenes Canyon.

The Ahmanson, Whiteface and Carlsberg proposals include homes as well as golf courses. Brown said there is a trend in development to replace wetlands with golf courses as a type of open space.

“But nothing native or biologically significant can live its life on a golf course,” she said.

A development proposed at Ormond Beach in Oxnard has potential to cause another major loss of wetlands if it is ever built, Brown said. The developer there at one time proposed marinas, hotels, homes and shopping complexes, but has not presented a final plan for the area.

“Ormond Beach is one of the county’s most important wetlands,” she said. If the area were developed, “That would be a loss of statewide significance.”

The widening of California 126 has destroyed a few acres of habitat along the Santa Clara River as bridges were widened. And the connector that linked California highways 118 and 23 in Moorpark disrupted a wetlands along the Arroyo Simi, a stream fed by treated waste water from a nearby treatment plant.

But in that case, the California Department of Transportation committed to a costly project to create a wetlands near the destroyed site. And that project has been largely successful, Brown said.

“It shows that with a lot of planning and a lot of money, you can restore or create a wetlands,” she said. “But the project cost runs from $10,000 to $100,000 per acre.”

Brown said the spill at McGrath Lake could end up affecting the wildlife and significant wetlands habitats at the Santa Clara River estuary, less than a mile north of the spill.

The endangered least tern, which is wintering farther south and has not yet been affected by the spill, nests at the estuary and probably at the lake, Brown said. The area also supports pelicans, herons, egrets and snowy plovers, among other birds.

Brown said the spill could have been more damaging to wetlands and wildlife if it had happened in the spring, when terns are foraging to feed their young and coots are teaching their chicks to swim. But she said the effects of the spill are likely to linger into spring, possibly forcing wildlife from McGrath Lake into the estuary.

“Perhaps that will cause more competition for food or nesting and roosting places” at the mouth of the river, Brown said.