Popular Idea Now Center of Controversy

It seemed like a good idea, following the massive American Tanker oil spill seven years ago that dumped 400,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean off Surf City, killing more than 1,000 birds.

Why not, environmentalists wondered, build a care center that could save coastal creatures from the devastation of future spills and other injuries?

And so the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center of Orange County was built on a 1.7-acre parcel owned by Southern California Edison Co. next to its treatment plant on Pacific Coast Highway, complete with new holding pens and a warehouse full of cages next to long, shiny sinks. With construction 80% complete, $500,000 in state and corporate money already has been spent on the project. The grand opening was expected in about five weeks.

Now that might not happen. Caught in a maze of 11th-hour wranglings with the city, the environmentalists running the center say they may not be able to open on time. And unless certain overriding issues are resolved, they say, the center may never open at all.

“The project is like the little caveman caught between two struggling dinosaurs,” said Victor Leipzig, a former mayor of Huntington Beach and now a member of the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, which is sponsoring the project along with the Alliance for Wildlife. “I think there’s been a failure to communicate.”

The two “dinosaurs” are the city and the huge utility company. Hanging in the balance is the future of a project that almost everybody says they want.

“I am optimistic that they will be able to work out their differences,” Leipzig said.

Of immediate concern is a conditional use permit that expired last year and must be renewed before construction can be completed. In exchange for approval of the permit, the city has required Edison to put landscaping along a portion of the center’s perimeter and to donate land for the widening of Newland Avenue, next to the project. The city also required the company to pay for improvements such as new gutters, curbing and street lights.

“The facility is being held hostage to those demands,” said Jerry Dominguez, Edison’s regional manager. While the company has agreed to the landscaping and is willing to donate the land, he said, it has balked at paying for the street improvements.

Underlying the discussion of what to do about Newland Avenue, however, is a potentially much bigger issue. As part of the deregulation of California’s electric utility industry set to begin next year, Edison plans to sell the processing plant and most of the approximately 30 acres on which it sits. The wildlife care center is part of that property and would be included in the sale, possibly to an owner more interested in making a profit from the parcel than in dedicating it to the care of wildlife.

To keep that from happening, Dominguez said, the company has asked the city to redraw the lot boundaries so that the utility can retain ownership of the 1.7-acre strip on which the wildlife center sits. The effort is bogged down, however, over various disagreements having to do with what documents are required and whether the new lot would conform to city zoning ordinances.

And now city officials are preparing a list of demands for the sale that could include a requirement that the care center be relocated altogether as an eyesore facing the beach.

“That’s not feasible,” Dominguez complained. “There is no other property available, and the cost of relocating would be prohibitive.”

David C. Biggs, the city’s director of economic development, said the discussion about relocating is preliminary and that nothing has been finalized.

“What we’re talking about is the potential sale of their plant and the mitigations for that sale,” he said. “We’ve talked about improving the appearance of the plant, and one option may be to relocate the wildlife center. What we’re doing is having a landscape architect draw up possibilities.”

The irony is that everyone seems to want the center to survive. It not only would be ready to go into operation in case of an oil spill, but would have volunteer veterinarians year-round to treat wild animals stricken by disease, injured by boats or sickened by pollution.

Edison officials say it’s a good opportunity to demonstrate how business leaders and environmentalists can work together.

“It’s being done because we felt it was something the community wanted, and it would be of benefit to the environment,” Dominguez said.

City officials tend to agree.

“We think it’s a good project,” said Lana Carter, an associate planner. “I believe the city is supportive.”

And environmentalists describe the center, which could treat as many as 10,000 animals a year, as an important link in a growing chain of facilities designed to protect coastal wildlife from the ravages wrought by humans.

“A lot of animals out there need help,” said Gary Gorman, the conservancy’s manager for the project. “They’re dying left and right because there aren’t adequate facilities to care for them.”

Greg Hickman, vice president of the Costa Mesa-based Alliance for Wildlife, agreed.

“This is a key project,” he said. “I can’t even imagine that any educated person who has the best interests of their community at heart would allow this [not] to happen.”

Gorman and Hickman said they felt that they made progress Friday by inviting two City Council members to the facility to show them around and argue their case.

“This has great potential,” councilman Peter M. Green said after touring the empty cages and wash sinks. “It’s desperately needed, and we should give them support.”

Green said he would talk to City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga about getting the matter put on a council agenda for a full and open airing.

“This is too important for an administrative decision,” he said.

Also contributing to this report was Times correspondent Jean O. Pasco.