Santa Cruz Island Trails, Beaches Turned Over to U.S.

About 8,500 acres of rugged hiking trails, expansive ocean vistas and beaches off the Ventura County coast became public property Wednesday in a ceremony attended by politicians and environmentalists.

The real estate, a gift from the Nature Conservancy of California, is worth more than $25 million and is said to be the single most valuable land grant to the National Park Service in about 30 years.

The donation gives the public access to 14,733 acres, or 24% of Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park.

Before the land transfer, which was announced in March but completed this week, the Nature Conservancy owned 90% of the island.

“This is 8,500 acres of some of the most pristine land on God’s green Earth that is going to be available to my constituents and people all over this nation,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), standing on the shore of Prisoners’ Harbor on Wednesday afternoon.

The low-key dedication ceremony was attended by former Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, known as the “father of Channel Islands National Park” because he sponsored legislation that established it, and by Joe Walsh, guitarist for the rock group the Eagles.

Walsh said he was a friend of the island’s former owner, Santa Barbara doctor Carey Stanton. Before Stanton’s death in the late 1980s, Walsh said, he promised to look after the island’s cultural resources.

Walsh has pledged to continue to help the Park Service preserve and restore the historic buildings on the island.

“You don’t want these buildings to fall down in 100 years and for the reason to be lack of funds,” he said.

The Park Service has built a single restroom at Prisoners’ Harbor and this spring plans to start rebuilding a dilapidated pier once used to haul sheep off the island.

In the meantime, “we’re open for business,” said Tim J. Setnicka, park superintendent.

Any member of the public can now take advantage of the hiking trails on the island or dock a boat in the harbor. Already more than 60,000 visitors trek to the Channel Islands annually, and Setnicka said he expects the newly acquired land to boost those numbers, especially after the opening of back country campsites.

Once he works out all the details, including water and sewage issues, Santa Cruz Island will be the only place in the park where visitors can enjoy overnight backpacking, he said .

The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving species, has tried to protect and restore the island habitat by eradicating nonnative plants and animals.

Lynn Lozier, the conservancy’s Santa Cruz Island project director, said the land gift symbolizes the group’s commitment to managing the island as “the ecological unit that it is.”

The island, about 25 miles off the Ventura County coast, is 95 square miles with two mountain ranges climbing as high as 2,400 feet.

Of the 11 plant and animal species unique to the island, 10 are endangered, Lozier told the small crowd Wednesday, as morning fog burned off to expose the island’s sapphire shoreline.