0.7 Acre but Worth a Fight

It is a tiny, brackish spot, but activists say the fate of this fragile sliver could determine the future of all of coastal California’s wetlands. Several prominent environmental groups sued the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday to halt the paving of 0.7 of an acre of Huntington Beach wetland for new homes.

The developer and city officials say the wetland is little more than an urban runoff-fed puddle, but activists say allowing it to be filled sets a dangerous precedent for disappearing coastal wetlands up and down the state. “We have so few--less than 5%--of our coastal wetlands left,” said Garry Brown of the Orange County CoastKeeper, which sued along with the Sierra Club, Wetlands Action Network and Bolsa Chica Land Trust. “At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and say: No more--isn’t 95% enough to destroy and fill in?”

In April, the commission voted 7 to 5, after a contentious four-hour public hearing, to reject their own staff’s recommendation to preserve the patch of saltwater and freshwater wetland near Pacific Coast Highway and Beach Boulevard.

The wetland is set to be bulldozed by the Robert Mayer Corp. as part of a development of up to 230 townhouses and duplexes on 23 acres.

The lawsuit “was expected,” said Larry Brose, Mayer Corp. vice president. “We will, of course, work with the commission and their legal department to defend the commission’s action.”

Brose noted that his Newport Beach-based company had agreed to create 2.8 acres of wetlands, four times the area that would be filled, at the Shipley Nature Center four miles away from the development. The developer is also planning on restoring 1.2 acres of other land at the center.

However, activists say replicating Mother Nature is tough to do.

Coastal wetlands occur where ocean meets land, creating special habitats for plants such as coastal live oak, beach evening primrose, sea lavender, eel grass and a variety of sages. They also act as natural filters for urban runoff and feeding grounds for migratory birds.

Under the state’s landmark 1972 Coastal Act, wetlands can be filled for eight reasons, including as part of wetlands restoration. For years developers have used this exception to justify projects that destroy wetlands but finance restoration or creation of wetlands elsewhere--a move that environmentalists say ignores the act’s intent.

Their views were affirmed by a state appeals court decision last year that prohibited destruction of wetlands and other environmentally sensitive habitats at nearby Bolsa Chica.

In the wake of that court decision, several commissioners and their staff argued the commission should retroactively apply the Bolsa Chica ruling to Huntington Beach’s 1988 approval of the Mayer Corp. project.

But the majority decided it would be unfair to stop a 23-acre project designed in good faith by a developer nearly two decades earlier.

Commission chairwoman Sara Wan, who voted to save the wetland, said she has “mixed emotions” about the lawsuit. She said she cannot support it because she is being sued.

But “I feel very strongly that the commission’s decision was wrong, and I think we’ll let the courts decide which way that goes,” she added.

Commissioner Shirley S. Dettloff, who is also a Huntington Beach city councilwoman and former mayor of the city, defended the city’s decision. She said the city has a proven environmental track record.

“We are the only city on the coast of California that has saved over 2,500 acres of wetlands,” she said. “This was a fragment that was highly degraded.”

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Wetland Fight

Several environmental groups sued the Coastal Commission on Wednesday for approving a request to pave a 0.7 wetland for housing.