350 Urge Coastal Panel to Block Bolsa Chica Project

More than 350 people packed a California Coastal Commission meeting in Huntington Beach on Wednesday, saying the nearby Bolsa Chica mesa must be spared from development to protect Orange County’s beaches from further contamination.

“Here we are at ground zero for dirty water,” said Chris Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, one of several environmental groups that coordinated Wednesday’s demonstration at the meeting at the Waterfront Hilton. The hotel sits along the same stretch of Huntington Beach that was closed to swimmers for much of last summer because of mysteriously high bacteria counts in the ocean.

“We’re going to be here until the last day, until the Bolsa Chica wetlands and the Bolsa Chica mesa are safe from development,” Evans told the 16-member commission. “It’s worth the fight.”

The commission already had decided to postpone until November a vote on whether to approve 1,235 homes on the mesa. But faced with the crowd, members listened to public comment on the project. The commission originally had been scheduled to vote Wednesday, but staff said it needed time to meet with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists before making a recommendation on the proposed development by Hearthside Homes.

Environmental groups have been battling development at Bolsa Chica for decades. The Bolsa Chica Land Trust and other groups sued the commission more than three years ago after it approved plans for a larger version of the housing development that spilled over into more fragile wetlands.

An appeals court, in what was considered a precedent-setting decision last year for protection of wetlands along the coast, bounced the proposal back to the commission. The ruling prohibited destruction of wetlands at the site, and two nearby environmentally sensitive areas.