Irvine Co. Will Try to Restore Pond

The city and the Irvine Co. hope to restore a rare freshwater habitat for amphibians, shrimp and plants at Fairview Park, officials said.

One of the park’s four vernal pools, seasonally occurring wetlands with special ecosystems, will be revitalized by the developer, which must do the work in exchange for building over a pool at another site.

The normally dry ponds come to life when they fill up with rainwater in the winter and spring, boasting unusual flora and fauna, tadpoles, frogs, fairy shrimp and flowers.

When vernal pools dry in summer, many of the animals and organisms die but leave behind eggs and seeds that are reinvigorated when rains return, said Paul Zedler, a biology instructor at San Diego State and an expert on the pools.

Once common along the coast, such pools are now few in Southern California.

“They are very rare,” Zedler said. “They occur on level land, which is most often developed.”

Portions of the pools at Fairview were degraded by soil from a construction project, and the city has been looking for a feasible way to restore them, said Keith Van Holt, director of community services.

Enter the Irvine Co., which is removing a man-made vernal pool at a project next to UC Irvine. The company agreed to replenish a nearly one-acre pool at Fairview to comply with state environmental guidelines requiring mitigation when pools are lost to development, said company spokesman Franz Wisner.

Sometime before the winter rainy season, Irvine Co. contractors will remove the foul soil from the Fairview pool, grade the area and add plant life, fairy shrimp and other natural elements. The project, whose $27,500 cost will be borne by the Irvine Co., should take six weeks.

“We’ll wait for the rains and hope that it takes,” Van Holt said.

Repairing sensitive vernal pools doesn’t always work, experts said.

“We do consider it to be experimental,” said Sandra Morey, a conservation coordinator with the state Department of Fish and Game in Sacramento. “At Fish and Game, it wouldn’t be our first choice to mitigate vernal pools. We prefer to have intact habitats protected.”

The Irvine Co. first approached the city about the project in January and details were worked out in August, city officials said. The Costa Mesa City Council approved the project Monday.