Environmentalists Sue to Preserve Small Patch of O.C. Wetland

It is a tiny, brackish spot, but environmental groups recently sued to save it, saying its fate could determine the future of all coastal wetlands in California.

The Sierra Club and others sued the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday to halt the paving of a 0.7-acre Huntington Beach wetland as part of a new home development.

The developer and city officials say the wetland is little more than a puddle fed by urban runoff. But activists say allowing it to be filled would set a 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 Orange County CoastKeeper, another plaintiff in the suit with Wetlands Action Network and the Bolsa Chica Land Trust. “At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand.”

In April, the panel voted 7 to 5, after a four-hour hearing, to reject its staff’s recommendation to preserve the 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, vice president of the Robert Mayer Corp. of Newport Beach. “We will, of course, work with the commission and their legal department to defend the commission’s action.” Brose noted that his 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 from the development. The developer also plans to restore 1.2 acres of other land.

However, activists say replicating Mother Nature is tough to do because coastal wetlands occur where ocean meets land, creating special habitats for plants. Under the 1972 Coastal Act, developers who have destroyed wetlands have financed restoration of wetlands elsewhere, which activists say ignores the act’s intent.

Commission member Shirley Dettloff, a Huntington Beach councilwoman, defended the decision. “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.”