Volunteers Strive to Preserve Rare Wetlands

When the moon was full, Lee LaGrange would canoe along the byways of Los Penasquitos Lagoon, paddling past the spiky bullrush, the tall salt grass and the abundant pickleweed.

The lagoon was a refuge from the nearby urban world. It was where the blue heron flew, and the water was alive with creatures and plants. LaGrange was so moved by the lagoon that he made it his business over the last 30 years to preserve and save it from encroaching development.

“Sometimes I tell people I do this as penance for a career in the military-industrial complex,” the 74-year-old retired chemist said recently. “The plain truth is, I like to play in sand with big machines.”

Just 15 miles north of downtown San Diego at Torrey Pines State Reserve, Los Penasquitos is one of six coastal estuaries in San Diego County, some of the last undeveloped wetlands in Southern California. Marshlands once dotted the coastal landscape, but they have since been paved over to make way for airports, marinas and other development.

Now ecologists, environmentalists and beach lovers are working to keep the remaining lagoons in their natural state. Los Penasquitos, Spanish for “little rocky place,” is home to the great blue heron, the white egret, clams and shellfish and numerous plants that thrive in the salty, wet soil, said Mike Wells, resource ecologist at Torrey Pines State Reserve.

There, among the spiky bullrush, which looks like a big, round bush of tall grass, the Beldings savannah sparrow nests. The salt marsh daisy, which bears little yellow flowers, thrives in mud flats where few other plants can survive.

Los Penasquitos is also home to raccoons, small deer, snakes and rodents.

When the Pacific Coast Highway was built over the lagoon in the 1960s, the waterway’s mouth was whittled down to a narrow strip. Since then, the major challenge has been to keep the estuary open to the sea.

“The lagoon I want is a viable thing,” LaGrange said. “It’s open, and it has saltwater circulating all the time. It builds a whole population of saltwater animals and plants. If you get too much fresh water in there, it kills them all.”

After the highway was finished, wood pilings remained behind from the old road that once spanned the 670-acre lagoon. When the tide was high, kelp would drift in and get hung up on the pilings, creating a dam that would close the lagoon.

LaGrange, who can see the marshland from his front window, would walk down with his ax each evening after work and chop down the pilings to clear the passageway.

The health of the lagoon today also is threatened by sewage and residential runoff containing contaminants such as lawn fertilizer.

The most recent man-made environmental crisis occurred recently when a pipe that carries sewage to the city’s treatment plant burst, sending 180,000 gallons of raw sewage into the lagoon.

Unfortunately, the lagoon was closed off to the ocean by a sand berm caused by a heavy storm that pushed the sand onto shore.

There was a happy ending, though.

Earth movers cleared the sand away three days after the pipe burst, just in time for a high tide to flush out Los Penasquitos.