They’re Back on the Marsh : New Set of Challenges Energizes Defenders of Upper Newport

It stretches like a broad green finger from the ocean into suburbia, a fragile ecosystem teeming with rare birds, mud flats and salt marshes.

The locals call it the Back Bay, but its formal name is Upper Newport Bay, and it has a long tradition of evoking stern loyalty among Orange County residents who stroll, canoe and bird-watch along its serpentine path.

That loyalty has surfaced again in recent months in response to a controversial plan to flush hundreds of millions of gallons of highly treated waste water annually into the bay.

Although the plan was sidelined last week amid calls for more study, both government officials and community activists agree it has succeeded in spurring fresh interest in the bay’s welfare.

And some warn that other pressures, from sediment buildup to new development, threaten the ecological balance of what experts describe as one of Southern California’s healthiest coastal wetlands.

“This brought to light the lack of concern and the lack of respect that people give the bay. They’re beginning to realize it needs a good hard look,” said Bob Caustin, founding director of Defend the Bay, formed last year during the waste water tug-of-war.

The bay’s recent history is full of such wranglings, as environmentalists have tried to shield the wetlands from encroaching development in the pricey and highly desirable Newport Beach coastal area. One of the best-known debates led to the creation in 1975 of the 752-acre Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, overseen by the state Department of Fish and Game.

The most recent controversy flared over the Irvine Ranch Water District’s plan to release 5 million gallons of treated sewage water daily into ponds leading to San Diego Creek and the bay. Last Tuesday, however, a new deal was struck in which treated water will be channeled into ponds while scientists study if it is suited for future flushing into the bay.

Experts caution that the bay faces other challenges, such as sediment buildup that can cause cloudiness and raise the bay’s elevation. State officials hope to remove the sediment with a $5-million project, but funding remains uncertain.

Biologists are also troubled by the emerald-green carpet of algae fed by fertilizer from agricultural fields, golf courses and yards upstream in the bay’s 150-square-mile watershed. Algae can remove oxygen that is essential for fish and other marine life.

And, this summer, bulldozers can be seen on bluffs above the bay, signaling the shrinking of open space around the reserve. Nearly three years ago, city residents defeated a measure to finance the purchase of three bluff-top properties slated for development by the Irvine Co. Now, construction is underway, with 119 homes planned for Upper Castaways near Dover Drive and 149 homes for Upper Newporter, also known as Harbor Cove, on Jamboree Road. More building is visible to the north, including the San Joaquin Hills toll road and an apartment complex.

Even the bay’s most faithful users, the joggers, the cyclists, the in-line skaters, can disturb its delicate ecosystem by startling birds and other wildlife.

“There’s such a thing as loving it too much,” said Jack Fancher, wetlands biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Yet the bay perseveres, despite the estimated 2 million people who visit each year, the bulldozers, the urban runoff, the jets that roar above the nesting grounds of rare birds like the light-footed clapper rail, which relish the bay’s expanses of cordgrass. A total of 158 pairs of clapper rails were counted this year in Upper Newport Bay, about half the population found in the entire United States.

“Considering all of the problems we do have, with water quality, with trash, with sediment, it’s still one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest, coastal salt marsh in Southern California,” said Troy D. Kelly, coastal ecological reserve manager in Southern California for state Fish and Game.

In fact, advocates say, much of the bay’s appeal springs from its tenacious survival as a cloistered place.

Somehow, rare birds and other Southern California native wildlife still thrive here, despite the ongoing rush of civilization close by.

In coastal marshlands such as Upper Newport Bay, says Fancher, “There’s a profusion of life.”

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Bay Watch

The Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, known locally as the Back Bay, is a 752- acre sanctuary of wetlands habitat amid Newport Beach’s tangle of homes, roads and commerce. Also a source of human delight, it attracts more than 2 million people per year. A look at Back Bay’s denizens:

Life At The Bay

Light- footed clapper rail

* Length: 14-16 inches

* Breeding: Nests in freshwater or saltwater marsh.

* Diet: Crustaceans, snails, worms and frogs.

Balding’s Savannah sparrow

* Length: 4-5 inches

* Breeding: Nests in grasslands and bogs.

* Diet: Spiders seeds and snails.

Plant life

Intertidal mud flats support cordgrass, pickleweed, jaumea and the endangered salt marsh bird’s beak.

Fish

Some ocean-dwelling fish such as California halibut and barred sandbass use Back Bay for spawning and nursery.

New Developments

The Back Bay is also a battleground between preservation and development. Some of the more promient developments around the bay.

1. Fletcher Jones Motor Cars (dealer).

2. Baypointe (apartments).

3. San Joaquin Hills toll road.

4. Newporter North (houses).

5. Upper Castaways (houses).

Fast Facts

* Upper Newport Bay was carved by river flow during the Pleistocene Epoch (2 million- 10,000 years ago.)

* Fresh water comes primarily from San Diego Creek.

* Back Bay is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Source: State Department of Fish and Game, “The Birder’s Handbook,” Times reports.