A Stand on the Wetlands : Environment: Protesters renew effort as county decision nears on a proposed housing development at Bolsa Chica.

For almost a decade, Marge Allen has been leading students throughthe Bolsa Chica wetlands, telling them about the Indian tribes that inhabited the area and the World War II bunker on the mesa that soldiers manned almost 50 years ago.

On Saturday morning, the 66-year-old Huntington Beach resident fought back tears at the thought that she and others who love the 1,700-acre area might lose it to development.

“There is so much that is here that matters,” Allen said, trying to steady her voice. “To wipe it away is utterly wrong. If we develop it now, it’s gone forever. If it’s never restored (by man), nature will do it itself.”

Under cloudy skies, Allen and hundreds of other environmentalists lined both sides of Pacific Coast Highway near Warner Avenue to focus attention on an Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this week that could determine the area’s fate.

Board members are expected to decide Wednesday whether to grant the property’s owner, the Koll Real Estate Group, a zoning change that would allow it to build 3,300 homes on the undeveloped land. As part of the construction project, the company has also pledged to dig a tidal inlet that would run under Pacific Coast Highway and into the wetlands area.

Lucy Dunn, senior vice president of Koll Real Estate Group, said the land is degraded and cannot sustain vegetation or wildlife. “Furthermore, it’s right next to existing homes. We would only use 25% of the land and over 1,200 acres would go to a park, trails and an extended ecological reserve.”

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Environmentalists argue that new homes will bring more people and pollutants that will funnel directly into the ocean and destroy wildlife habitats. In a show of solidarity, more than 50 surfers propped their surfboards along a fence that separates the highway from the beach.

Pat O’Brien, a 28-year-old science teacher, waved at passing cars. He lives close to the beach and tries to go surfing every morning, he said.

Bolsa Chica “is one of the last natural resources in Orange County,” he said. “We’ve got migrating birds that come here to nest. Where are they going to go when this land is developed?”

Drivers on Pacific Coast Highway and Warner Avenue slowed to read signs bearing such hand-painted slogans as, “Save it, don’t pave it” and “Easy to go bankrupt, easy to promise restoration,” a reference to the county’s recent troubles. Many honked in support, but not everyone was pleased by the rally.

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“I think this is a bunch of baloney,” said Brad White, a 27-year-old Costa Mesa subcontractor and member of the Surfrider Foundation, who opposes his group’s opposition to the development.

“I disagree with Surfrider completely,” White said. “I joined them basically because I love the ocean. I think more are getting into fighting homes and development rather than just protecting the ocean and wildlife. The area’s dying and they would rather wait another 20 years and let it erode instead of developing it for the community’s benefit.”

White’s comments drew hostility from other demonstrators who gathered around him and his friends in the parking lot, engaging in a heated debate.

“There are going to be 700 homes built on the wetlands and 2,600 on the mesa,” Gordon Labedz a spokesman for the Surfrider Foundation, said. “Our stand is no building of any kind. This is a sacred spot for a surfer. There are very few spots where you can look from the water to the land and see no buildings or people.”