Project to Revitalize Harbor Puts Herons Out on Limb, Critics Say

Bicyclists slow down, dog walkers look up, stroller-pushing parents stop and point: Craning their necks, anyone on the path bordering Channel Islands Harbor can take in a flock of immense birds preening atop the evergreens on a grassy strip beside the water.

For at least 20 years, the trees have been home to what some experts say is one of Ventura County’s few known nesting sites for great blue herons and black-crowned night herons.

Now they are also the focus of a conflict pitting neighborhood residents against county officials who are planning a 20,000-square-foot boating facility for the narrow strip of parkland just north of the Whale’s Tail restaurant.

Relying on about $4.2 million from the state and $1.8 million in local funds, officials see the building invigorating the county-run harbor, now dotted by empty storefronts and languishing restaurants.

Completion is expected in 2005. Classes would be offered in sailing, kayaking and rowing to students from local schools and the new Cal State Channel Islands. Also offered would be programs in marine education--a point the project’s critics view as ironic.

“It would be unfortunate if some of the very resources the center was committed to educating the public about were destroyed by building the center,” wrote Morgan Wehtje, a state Department of Fish and Game biologist, in a letter to county officials.

This week, the county’s plan ran into renewed opposition from the agency that serves as a town board for the unincorporated neighborhoods around the harbor.

The Channel Islands Beach Community Services District already had told county officials the building would be a good addition to the harbor--at one of six other sites.

This week the district’s board demanded a full-blown environmental impact report, rejecting the county’s claim the project would cause only negligible environmental damage.

Veteran yachtsmen at the board’s meeting also questioned the site’s safety.

“It’s totally insane from a safety standpoint,” said Mark Gray, whose boating safety television show ran for three years on The Learning Channel.

Prevailing winds could sweep novice sailors into heavy boating traffic, Gray said, while a site across the harbor would keep them out of harm’s way.

County officials say the neighbors’ fears are overblown.

Lyn Krieger, the harbor director, said the harbor’s ample food supply will keep the herons around, if in other trees.

“They came in because of the food source, and they’ll stay because of the food source,” she said, citing opinions from consulting biologists.

Construction will start in August 2003 and will aim to keep interference with nesting at a minimum, she said.

With a 6-foot wing span, great blue herons are among the largest raptors in North America.

The birds are believed to nest in secluded spots at Lake Casitas and the mouth of the Santa Clara River.

But the harbor site, in trees wedged between a restroom building and a parking lot, is the only documented rookery in Ventura County, Wehtje said.

While the county’s plan seems to generate little enthusiasm around the harbor, restaurant owner Michael Koutnik suggested that opponents simply fear change.

“If this had been built 20 years ago, they would have lived along with it and it would have been the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Koutnik, whose Whale’s Tail would be one of the restaurants closest to the center.