Bolsa Wetlands Protection Plan Nears Deadline

The weathered swath of marshland is severed from the ocean and riddled with pipelines and oil wells. For those driving by, the pelicans and snowy egrets are overshadowed by towering oil pumps.

Hardly the stuff of picture postcards.

But to those fighting to save it, Bolsa Chica is a diamond in the rough, a potential Yosemite of wetlands.

So valuable are its ponds and mudflats that government officials are poised to launch a sweeping, $85-million project, the largest wetlands restoration ever attempted in Southern California.

The project, which could rise or fall in the next five days because of a critical state meeting on the issue and a landowner-imposed deadline, has triggered months of intrigue and infighting as public agencies negotiate to buy the wetlands from a landowner that had hoped to erect hundreds of homes there.

But beyond the politics is the reality that Bolsa Chica is one of the last remaining wetlands on a coastline that has lost as much as 90% of its wetlands to development. It is a haven to rare birds, a nursery for fish, a microcosm of the biological richness that once lined California’s coast.

That reality has fueled a decades-long preservation campaign that may finally be nearing a crucial turn.

“This is the closest we’ve ever come,” said Robert Hoffman of the National Marine Fisheries Service, who started working on Bolsa Chica in 1976 and now calls himself “cautiously optimistic” that a deal is imminent.

Still, longtime observers of the Bolsa saga caution that nothing about it is ever simple or finite.

Weary officials jetted last week from Los Angeles to Sacramento to Washington, fretting over pollution findings and funding solutions before an important Dec. 20 state meeting and the final Dec. 30 deadline set by the landowner, Koll Real Estate Group.

The project they hope to hammer together would remove 900 homes from the controversial 3,300-home project Koll plans for the Bolsa Chica area next to Huntington Beach.

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Instead, a pool of funds--largely from ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach--would be used to buy about 880 acres from Koll and restore them. The goal: a massive, 1,200-acre wetlands preserve complete with a new tidal basin that promises to be a mecca for migrating birds, young fish and hikers.

Even after years of mind-numbing obstacles and politicking, those planning the preserve describe it with undisguised exuberance.

They envision a wetlands dotted not with oil wells but with fish-filled ponds and nesting birds. They talk about how a new inlet would allow ocean tides to again enter Bolsa Chica directly, enriching the wetlands and bolstering its supply of food for migrating birds.

“The sea brings life,” said Jack Fancher, a wetlands expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “That’s one reason we believe this restoration will be so biologically invigorating.”

But problems could still derail the project:

* The question remains murky of who will clean up specific oil-related contaminants, troubling state and federal agencies.

* Landowner Koll wants the deal closed by Dec. 30, despite requests from some public agencies for an extension.

* A key funder, the Port of Los Angeles, needs to know by February whether the project is definite, since it would serve to offset a port expansion project due to start in summer 1997.

Bolsa Chica is widely considered California’s largest unprotected coastal wetlands south of San Francisco--and the largest Southern California wetlands still in private hands.

Thus a possible state purchase has sparked keen interest among many conservation groups as well as high-ranking officials in the Clinton and Wilson administrations.

The purchase plan calls for the state Lands Commission to acquire title to at least 880 acres of Koll-owned wetlands, with state and federal wildlife officials overseeing restoration. Koll is asking $25 million for the land.

Crucial to the restoration project are the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which would each contribute $33.7 million in return for permission to proceed with expansion plans.

Most of the wetlands are now owned by Koll, which has drawn up plans for a 3,300-home development, including 2,400 homes on a nearby mesa that would still be built even if the state wetlands purchase succeeds. Despite vehement protest from environmentalists, the Koll plan won approval from the County Board of Supervisors in late 1994 and from the state Coastal Commission in January 1996.

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Still, the notion of a public purchase of Bolsa Chica is not new. The federal government tried to buy the land in 1995, but efforts faltered amid fears that oil-field operations dating to the 1940s had polluted the property.

Federal and state officials resumed purchase talks this year, and a study of potential contaminants was launched this summer. The results have been scrutinized for weeks by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other experts.

Their chief concern is that pollutants could sour the deal if neither Koll nor oil companies that have operated at Bolsa step forward to accept full responsibility for cleanup.

The current oil operator is CalResources, an affiliate of Shell Oil Co., which has leased oil rights at Bolsa since 1986.

The firm is already involved in a major cleanup at the site, but a spokeswoman stressed that it is not prepared to accept responsibility for historic contamination beyond the estimated 242 acres it leases--less than one-third of the land being eyed for state purchase.

“We do not believe we’re responsible for those areas which we do not lease,” said the spokeswoman, Susan Hersberger.

Koll has mentioned another potential funder, Phillips Petroleum, Shell’s predecessor at Bolsa. But a Phillips spokeswoman, in a written statement Thursday, stated that “under terms of the sales contract to Shell Oil Co. in 1986, Shell is the appropriate party to conduct the cleanup.”

Koll Senior Vice President Lucy Dunn is undeterred.

California law makes the landowner and oil companies responsible for cleanup, said Dunn, adding: “Among the oil operators and the landowners, the contamination issues will be handled.”

Dunn said Friday: “I’m still very optimistic.”

Those negotiating a deal are tight-lipped about the contaminants question and details are closely guarded by agreements delaying disclosure.

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On Friday, Department of Interior lawyers were still refusing to make a key evaluation report public, describing it as a draft. Interviews and documents indicate that the chief concern is hydrocarbon contamination and metals turned up during recent soil testing.

Some environmentalists are bothered by talk of pollutants and by what they call the increasingly closed-door nature of negotiations.

“Maybe there’s a question if we should be paying Koll any dollars for this if it’s found to be that contaminated,” said Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Wetlands Action Network. “Without seeing the study, we can’t really know for sure.”

And several environmentalists criticize the deal for not going far enough, since it would still allow 2,400 mesa-top homes.

But in a county where most wetlands have long since vanished, the notion of restoring hundreds of acres of Bolsa Chica is mustering considerable support, from government officials to bird watchers and hikers.

“Bolsa Chica probably represents one of the last opportunities to restore or reestablish a wetlands along the coast,” said Mark Adelson of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“Even those people who fly by on PCH,” Adelson said, “even if they look out and say, ‘That’s really pretty, that’s cool,’ and keep going--those people have benefited from the effort.”

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The Shape of Bolsa’s Future?

An ambitious plan to restore the Bolsa Chica wetlands hinges on state purchase of wetlands property currently owned by Koll Real Estate Group. The purchase would allow one of the largest wetlands restorations in Southern California history and block construction of Koll’s plan for 900 new homes on the site. A closer look at how the full 1,200-acre restoration would look:

1. Managed tidal: Tide levels would be controlled so sea water would not interfere with oil pads, roads and other oil operations expected to continue for up to 20 years

2. Full tidal/intertidal: Become fully restored wetlands

3. Tidal inlet: Water to flow freely between ponds and ocean

4. Levee reinforcement: Separates full tidal area from remaining lowlands; prevents entire wetlands from being underwater at high tide

5. Nesting sites: Possible Western snowy plover and California least tern nesting areas

6. Seasonal ponds: Some of lowest land in Bolsa Chica; during winter dotted with ponds that become popular gathering spots for migratory birds7. Future full tidal: May be connected to full tidal area after oil wells are retired

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Why Wetlands Matter

An intertidal zone is the area between the highest and lowest tide marks, and wetlands created in this zone provide an important step in the food chain. During high tide, some birds--like pelicans and least terns--dive for fish. Low tide leaves behind mud flats and salt marshes where birds probe mud for shellfish and crustaceans. Outgoing tides also expose cordgrass, a favored nesting habitat of the light-footed clapper rail, an endangered bird.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Researched by DEBORAH SCHOCH / Los Angeles Times