Consultant Faults County Report on Bolsa Chica Plans : Development: The environmental data on the alternatives to Koll company’s home-building project is called ‘poorly organized and confusing.’

A city consultant charged Monday that Orange County’s environmental assessment of its own development proposals for the Bolsa Chica wetlands is flawed and incomplete, and called on the county to prepare a new one.

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Steven Roseman, who was hired by the city to evaluate the county’s latest environmental impact report, said it is “poorly organized and confusing” and doesn’t address some basic issues of potential environmental effects.

The charge came at an informal public hearing before the City Council on the revised EIR. That report was supposed explain the impacts of development proposals recently suggested by the county as alternatives to the Koll Real Estate Group’s development plans.

No representatives from the county were present at the meeting.

This latest twist Monday caused Councilman Earle Robitaille to storm out of the council meeting, indicating he was fed up with the bureaucracy of it all.

“I can’t take any more. I’m going to pack up and go home,” he said. Robitaille said the city has wasted thousands of dollars on consultants to review and evaluate the EIRs.

The Koll company proposes to build 4,286 homes on 400 acres of the bluffs and lowlands and restore 1,100 acres of wetlands. The plan calls for construction of a road transecting the area and a $20-million tidal inlet connecting the wetlands to the ocean as part of the restoration effort.

The county’s plans would drastically reduce the number of homes built and offer options for wetlands restoration in the lowland.

Under the county’s lowest-density plan, homes could not be built on protected areas, which would relieve the Koll company of restoring the wetlands. The plan for a maximum number of 3,200 homes calls for some development on lowland marshes and restoration of the remainder of the wetlands.

The county’s proposal also does not include a restoration plan with a tidal inlet, which has been criticized by some environmental groups.

The Amigos de Bolsa Chica, however, favors a tidal inlet and prefers the Koll plan over the county’s. The Amigos, a wetlands protection group, considers a tidal inlet critical for a high quality wetlands restoration, said Terry Dolton, former Amigos president.

Earlier Monday, the Amigos held a news conference at the Talbert Marsh inlet, an area they hope will serve as inspiration to those planning the future of the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The Amigos group has proposed creating a similar tidal entrance at the southern end of Bolsa Chica, executive director Adrianne Morrison said. The inlet would not be at the site of a natural inlet that existed in the 1850s in the area of present-day Warner Avenue. To place it there would be too disruptive to outer Bolsa Bay, Morrison said.

The restoration plan in the county proposal focuses on channel widening and increased water flows through Anaheim Bay that would result in undesirable loss of habitat at Bolsa Chica, Morrison said. It also could create water quality problems in Huntington Harbour, she said.

But another group, the Surfrider Foundation, opposes any inlets.

“The ocean inlet plan was scrapped because it is an environmentally destructive, $20-million boondoggle that will destroy the Huntington cliffs and destroy the wetlands,” Surfrider spokesman Gordon Labedz said.

Two other hearings will be held this week in the city to give the public the opportunity to comment on the revised environmental impact report. The report’s 45-day public comment period ends Oct. 6.

An even bigger crowd than Monday’s is expected at a formal public hearing before the county Planning Commission at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the City Council Chambers.

A third meeting will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, hosted by the Huntington Beach Waterways & Beaches Committee. The informal meeting will be at the Huntington Harbour Yacht Club on Warner Avenue, just east of Pacific Coast Highway.