$400,000 Granted to Aid Three Ailing Lakes : Ecology: Money from Coastal Conservancy will be used to clean the county’s only natural freshwater lakes and restore native vegetation at site in Laguna Canyon.

A $400,000 grant from the state Coastal Conservancy will help rescue three ecologically ailing lakes in Laguna Canyon, the only natural freshwater lakes in Orange County, officials said Wednesday.

The county division of harbors, beaches and parks will oversee the restoration project, which will clean the dirty water, restore natural vegetation and, it is hoped, attract migrating waterfowl to the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.

“It’s really going to be wonderful,” said Elisabeth Brown, a member of the Coastal Greenbelt Authority, a panel formed to manage the park at the edge of Laguna Beach.

The park is about 2,500 acres but is likely to be enlarged to more than 10,000 acres as neighboring parcels of open land are turned over to the county. In the end, it could become the county’s largest wilderness park, with the restored lakes as its centerpiece, environmentalists say.

Reviving the freshwater ponds is part of a $2.5-million project to allow greater public access to the wilderness park, which is now open only one weekend a month for guided tours. The main goal is to clean the lake waters of harmful bacteria and vegetation and establish native plants.

A related, controversial proposal that has received the backing of many environmentalists would involve realigning Laguna Canyon Road, which runs near the lakes and is one of two two roadways into the Laguna Beach.

“Short of moving the road, this is the best thing we could get,” Brown said.

The road realignment project will be the focus of a county-hosted public meeting at El Morro Elementary School in Laguna Beach at 6:30 p.m. today.

The lake restoration project made possible by the conservancy’s grant will proceed regardless of whether the road is ever moved. The grant money only will be used to rescue the ponds.

Brown said the county must still create detailed plans for the project and find contractors and consultants to do the work.

“It is not going to be immediate,” she said. “It will be at least several months, up to a year, before they start work.”

Brown said the county sought the grant from the conservancy, an environmental organization and arm of the state government. The project also was supported by elected officials.

Much of the park’s future design depends on the future of the roadway.

An Environmental Impact Report released by the county last month outlines various ways the winding Laguna Canyon Road eventually might be altered between El Toro Road and the San Diego Freeway to make it safer, reduce the frequency of flooding in the area and allow traffic to flow more freely.

The “preferred alternative” calls for the state highway, which snakes through some of the most scenic landscape in Orange County, to be shifted to the west and widened to four lanes with a median separating north and southbound traffic. That option would allow the existing road to be uprooted so that two lakes that were once been connected could be joined again, and the general area could be more thoroughly restored.

Another plan would widen the roadway to four lanes between El Toro Road and the proposed San Joaquin Hills toll road and six lanes between the tollway and the San Diego Freeway.

A final option would be to leave the road as it is.

The lakes have taken a battering, in part because of their location at a low point in the canyon that catches runoff from the canyon’s 600-acre watershed. Surrounding land eroded by cattle grazing leads to additional runoff of mud, sediment and fertilizer.

The lake algae thrives on the runoff and inhales the oxygen needed by underwater plants and fish. As a result, several fish kills have been reported in the past decade.

Such sediment, along with dead trees and other harmful plants, will be replaced with natural vegetation, including sycamores and willows, under the revitalization plan.