Giving Voice to Their Concern for the Wetlands

They’re veteran sign-toters and letter-writers, but now those opposed to building homes at the Bolsa Chica wetlands have a new weapon--the soothing acoustic tunes of Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash.

The two singers will be featured Saturday at a free concert and rally spearheaded by groups seeking to halt plans for home-building on and around the ecologically sensitive wetlands next to Huntington Beach.

Organizers are leafleting beaches and neighborhoods in hopes of drawing thousands of people to the 11 a.m. rally at Bolsa Chica State Beach.

Koll Real Estate Group wants to construct 3,300 homes in the wetlands area and on a nearby mesa. Environmentalists have staunchly opposed building on what is considered the largest undeveloped coastal wetlands south of San Francisco.

“There’s an election coming up, and we want the people who are running or who are already in office to realize how many people care about Bolsa Chica,” said Nancy Donaven, president of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which is sponsoring the event along with the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club’s Angeles chapter.

Organizers hope that as many as 10,000 people will show up, and they’re sending out mailings, making telephone calls, ringing doorbells and putting up posters to advertise the event.

“All of our members are out pounding the pavement,” said Bill Gregory, chairman of the Huntington Beach/Long Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.

Raitt, whose music was rooted in the ‘60s, staged a now-legendary comeback with the 1989 release of “Nick of Time.” Nash is best known for his work with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

The event will feature other entertainers: Pierce Brosnan, the actor who plays James Bond; singer Michelle Shocked; actor Keely Shay Smith; and the Aztec Dancers.

State and federal agencies are working on a plan for the public purchase of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, which would effectively cancel plans for 900 homes on the wetlands. But the Bolsa Chica Land Trust has opposed any development in the area, including the mesa where the remaining 2,400 homes are planned.

“You just can’t save one piece of the puzzle and say the whole thing’s saved. That’s just myopic vision,” land trust member Debbie Cook said.

Lucy Dunn, senior vice president of the Koll Real Estate Group, said the firm’s plan calls for restoring part of the wetlands, which have been used for decades for oil drilling. About 165 acres of wetlands are restored today.

Dunn questioned the performers’ familiarity with the project, saying: “I would be delighted to offer Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash and any other of the celebrities a personal tour of the wetlands that are dying at Bolsa Chica so that they can see how we’re going to expand 165 acres to 1,100 acres, because I don’t think they know.”

The rally comes just a few weeks before the California Coastal Commission is due to consider an inter-agency wetlands restoration plan that would replace the Koll plan to restore the wetlands site.

The interagency plan would be tied to state purchase of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, but that sale is not yet assured, especially since a study of possible oil field contamination at the site is not yet completed.

The commission will take up the issues during the week of Oct. 8, when its board members will meet in Los Angeles.

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Bolsa Chica Rally

* When: Next Saturday

* Where: Bolsa Chica State Beach, near Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway

* Stars: Singers Bonnie Raitt and Graham Nash

* Admission: Free

* Parking: $6 at the beach. Organizers encourage people to ride bikes and carpool

* Other transportation: Free shuttle bus from Marina High School and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; also, car-pooling from Edison High School

* Information: (714) 969-9283