San Diego Wildlife Refuge Dedicated

Memo to migratory birds:

Tired of that oppressive heat at the Salton Sea and scared of those avian diseases bubbling beneath the tea-colored surface? Looking for an alternative stopover along the Pacific Flyway?

You might give a thought to the 2,200-acre South San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge, dedicated Thursday by local, state and federal officials as one small step for birds but one giant leap for birdkind.

Acting Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes called the new refuge “one of the most significant coastal wetland and wildlife protection efforts in Southern California” and a model for other habitation protection plans across the country. It joins more than 500 wildlife refuges nationwide, including five in San Diego County.

To make this refuge a reality, the San Diego Unified Port District this year paid $20.5 million for 1,300 acres used for decades as a salt-pond operation by Western Salt Co. Environmentalists have been pushing for two decades to make the area off-limits to commerce and development.

“This is the most important thing to happen to San Diego Bay since we stopped dumping our sewage in it [in 1964],” said Laura Hunter, director of the clean bay campaign for the Environmental Health Coalition of San Diego. “We can’t restore the bay to its original abundance, but we can preserve what’s left.”

The acreage consists of open water plus mud flats, salt ponds and eelgrass beds along the bay fronts of Coronado, Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach and San Diego, the cities that constitute the port district.

The new refuge is home to 127 bird species, 142 fish species and 292 species of invertebrates. Seven of the species are threatened or endangered, including the green sea turtle and Western snowy plover.

Call the refuge deal a swap between living creatures that need to fly.

In order to gain approval to expand Lindbergh Field, the region’s international airport, onto 50 acres once owned by the Navy, the port district needed to make penance for disturbing a nesting area of the federally protected California least tern on that land.

In an arrangement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a deal was struck whereby the district bought the salt company property. The port also agreed to pay $900,000 for a restoration plan for least tern nesting.

In his 1840 novel, “Two Years Before the Mast,” Richard Henry Dana Jr. marvels at the beauty of San Diego Bay as his ship rounds Ballast Point at what is now the Point Loma section of San Diego (West Coast home to the Navy’s attack submarines).

The beauty of the natural deep water bay was surpassed only by its bountiful wildlife. In the middle of the 19th century, the bay was a calving site for whales and home to osprey, lobster and halibut.

But much of the modern story of the bay involves decades of filling, dredging, diking and draining. More than 90% of the bay’s wetlands and shallow-water habitats are gone.

Habitat destruction has decreased the number of wintering waterfowl by 90%. Still, the bay remains an important stopover for ducks, geese and shore birds that travel along the Pacific Coast between Alaska and South America.

Refuge boosters hope that the number of migrating shore birds, wintering waterfowl and nesting seabirds will increase as salt pond operations are phased out and the acreage is restored to its natural state. Public uses of the refuge, including boating and fishing in the open water, will continue.

Making the area a refuge, Hayes said, ensures that it will not be filled in “to become the next subdivision or destination-resort hotel.”