HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Asks U.S. to Consider Land Swap to Save Wetlands

The City Council this week agreed to send a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt asking him to consider swapping federal land for the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

“I think most people would like to see the whole area saved and a land swap could potentially be the mechanism for it,” said Councilman David Sullivan, who suggested the letter.

The council’s action endorsed a concept first floated in May by the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, a group opposed to any development on the wetlands.

After meeting in Portland with a representative of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, members of the environmental organization--with the service’s backing--suggested swapping the wetlands for parts of the Tustin or El Toro Marine Corps air stations, both of which are scheduled for imminent closure.

But a Tustin task force rejected the idea last year. And recent discussions regarding El Toro have centered on land owned by the Irvine Co. near the Cleveland National Forest, not the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

“We have to deal with reality,” said Lucy Dunn, senior vice president of the Koll Real Estate Group, which proposes building 4,286 homes on the bluffs and lowlands and restoring 1,100 acres of wetlands. “If somebody has something real to present, we will look at it, but I never get anything real.”

The council voted 5 to 2 to send the letter, over the objections of Councilmen Jim Silva and Earle Robitaille, who called the action “laughable” and a “total waste of time.”

The idea of land swap, Robitaille said, is a “bureaucratic strangulation by environmental groups trying to steal property without paying fair market value for it.”