State Nature Agency Votes to Buy Wetlands

A state conservation agency Thursday approved the purchase of 265 marshy acres on the fringes of Oxnard, providing a key link in what is to be Southern California’s biggest wetlands restoration.

Effectively barring development on a portion of Ormond Beach, the unanimous vote by the board of the Coastal Conservancy scuttled plans by the Occidental Petroleum Corp. for a $250-million energy facility on the site.

The $9.7-million purchase from Southern California Edison must be approved by the state Public Works Board before the deal can be closed. If the land is acquired--an action that by contract must occur no later than June 14--it would lie at the heart of a planned 4,000-acre wetland preserve stretching nine miles from Port Hueneme to Point Mugu.

“It’s the most important wetlands restoration opportunity in Southern California,” said Dick Wayman, a spokesman for the conservancy. “Restoring and uniting all these wetlands would offer a tremendous habitat to a variety of wildlife.”

The decision elated local officials, as well as activists who had long fought to save the beach and its endangered seabirds. Bordered by a power plant and the slag heaps of an aluminum recycling facility, Ormond Beach has been eyed over the years for subdivisions, industrial sites, even an amusement park.

Occidental’s liquefied natural gas plant would have serviced many of the 14 power plants under construction throughout California. Tankers would have docked at a pier that would have been built 4,000 feet offshore and pumped liquid through underwater pipes to the plant, which would have converted it to gas and shot it into pipelines spanning the state.

While Occidental was waiting in the wings, the state was first in line for the purchase, under a contract it signed with Edison in 1969.

A longtime supporter of Ormond’s restoration, county Supervisor John Flynn applauded the conservancy’s action.