Harbor Plan Has Herons Out on Limb

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 Ventura 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 scheduled for 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 that 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.

On Tuesday, 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 TV 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 is to start in August 2003 and will be done to keep interference with nesting at a minimum, she said.

With a 6-foot wing span, great blue herons are among the largest water birds 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.

Krieger also expressed skepticism about the safety objections.

“You never want a novice sailor blown back into the dock once they’ve left,” she said. “You always want them blown outward.”

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.

But opponents at this week’s meeting were more specific.

The center’s main building--50% larger than the Whale’s Tail--would block views from nearby homes, they said, while sites across the harbor would not.

But Krieger disagreed.

“Not a single location won’t block someone’s view,” she said, adding “there’s no guarantee when you locate across from a commercial facility that your view will be uninterrupted forever.”

The county’s “mitigated negative declaration”--a report concluding that the project would have little environmental effect--is inadequate, opponents contend.

“Why is there no environmental impact report?” asked Trevor Smith, a resident leading the opposition. “This has to be viewed in the full context of other projects planned in the harbor.”

In its declaration, the county soft-pedals traffic to the center, opponents contend. The documents state the facility would generate just 35 to 40 trips daily.

It also states the herons could be saved by sparing as many trees as possible during construction and planting new ones nearby.

Wehtje of the state Department of Fish and Game said that such measures “wouldn’t even come close” to helping the herons.

“You could do that if you knew you weren’t going to build for, say, 10 years,” she said.

Otherwise, she said, the colony would be disrupted, some birds would die and others would not reproduce for years.

Herons are known for their “nest-site fidelity,” she said, predicting that birds from the colony of dozens would scatter and cause the flock to permanently thin.

Residents intend to show up in force when Ventura County supervisors consider the issue on June 18.

Before that, Supervisor John Flynn, who represents the area, plans to meet with several concerned residents and county planners.

“I hope we can work this out,” he said, adding that harbor revenue has been dwindling.

“Since 1985, there have been a series of problems that almost killed the spirit of the harbor,” he said. “We’ve got to turn that around.”