Muddying the Waters Further : Lack of Hearing on Report Renews Bolsa Chica Debate

The Bolsa Chica wetlands are pretty lively this time of year.

In the air above the huge marsh along Pacific Coast Highway, a host of migratory birds--including peregrine falcons, brown pelicans and black-shouldered kites--flutter overhead.

Beneath the shallow green waters of the wetlands, sea slugs and horn snails wallow in the mud.

But just as lively as the wildlife is the controversy regarding the development of the wetlands, rekindled by the county’s release last month of an environmental impact report that was two years in the making.

Controversy is no stranger to Bolsa Chica. It has been part and parcel of this landscape for years, as a succession of developers has come forward with various plans for the area’s future. Each in turn has been shouted down by a host of environmentalists and community residents.

Now under consideration is a proposal from the Koll Real Estate Group, owner of the land in question, with a new twist on an old theme: In exchange for permission to build 4,286 homes on 400 acres of the site, the company says, it will spend $48 million to restore 1,100 acres of wetlands by constructing a tidal inlet to the ocean to reinvigorate the marsh.

“We intend to prove that our plan is the most feasible and the

only alternative for saving wetlands that are dying,” said Lucy Dunn, the company’s senior vice president. “It is our mission to do this clean and correct.”

But the leading opponents of the project, the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, challenge that notion.

“We believe it is one ecosystem,” said Flossie Horgan, president of the group formed in 1992 with the aim of buying the 1,700-acre wetlands from Koll to save it from development and preserve it as a public park. “If you build 5,000 homes on the wetlands, you can’t save them.”

Amigos de Bolsa Chica, which for 18 years has been fighting to preserve the wetlands, is not opposed to all development on the tract but has consistently argued for fewer homes and more wetlands restoration.

“We feel very strongly that the most important component is the wetlands,” Amigos President Chuck Nelson said. “I feel comfortable with the people I’m dealing with at Koll, that they’re willing to invest the money to do the restoration.”

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Divided on the issue is the Huntington Beach City Council. While some council members favor the development, enough remain critical of it to commit the city to spending more than $130,000 to hire an independent consultant to review the county’s environmental impact report and a battery of lawyers to study legal challenges to it.

“I don’t like the way the project is currently structured,” said Councilman Ralph Bauer, an outspoken critic of the Koll plan. “It looks like it’s signed, sealed and delivered, and it doesn’t represent the viewpoint of the citizens of Huntington Beach. There are some alternatives that need to be explored.”

Earlier this week, the controversy again erupted when council members accused the county of trying to stifle discussion about the project by refusing to hold public hearings on the impact report and by requiring written comments to be submitted by Feb. 18.

According to Tom Mathews, director of planning for the county’s Environmental Management Agency, the reasons for not holding hearings were practical. “We are required by law to respond to every comment in writing and that would be virtually impossible in the kind of environment” created by a public hearing, he said.

“We believe that if someone takes the time to sit down with the EIR and is moved to comment on it that they will do so in writing,” he said.

Then, after the report is revised and finalized, Mathews said, the county will hold a series of public hearings on the project sometime in May.

But some city officials charge that the process smacks of elitism.

“I think it’s an outrage,” said Bauer, who with other council members expressed criticism during the City Hall study session. “To not let the citizens of Huntington Beach speak out on this issue (is unconscionable). It’s hard to believe that representative government can function that way.”

Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson agreed.

“I’m very disappointed,” she said. “This project will impact the citizens of Huntington Beach most directly and we felt that the county would be holding public hearings.”

To counter what they see as the county’s intransigence on the matter, city officials said they plan to hold their own public hearing on the impact report at 6 p.m. Jan. 31.

Horgan says her 1,797-member group has raised less than $100,000 toward the purchase of the Bolsa Chica wetlands since 1992.

She admits that’s not much, but if the Koll group could ever be persuaded to sell its property, Horgan believes that the funding could be put together through some sort of cooperative public venture.

Once acquired, Horgan said the wetlands could be restored for about $2 million.

“Nature will restore the wetland if allowed to do so in its own time,” she said, referring to a plan--criticized by Koll and others--that would widen the connection between the inner and outer Bolsa bays, which Horgan believes would allow enough new water in to freshen the wetlands.

“We’re hoping that Koll will have a change of heart,” Horgan said. “We’ve been very successful in educating the public and putting out a new vision for Bolsa Chica that redefines what community development means.”

Dunn from Koll countered: “We’re the only ones with a vision and the only ones who can pay for it.”

Proposed Development In exchange for permission to build more than 4,000 homes on 400 acres of Bolsa Chica wetlands, the Koll Real Estate Group has promised to spend $48 million to restore 1,100 acres of the wetlands. The Koll proposal: Conservation: Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve Housing: Proposed Bolsa Chica St.