H.B. Wetlands Conservancy optimistic about acquiring Newland Marsh

After years of negotiating with a state agency, the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy is getting closer to being able to clean up and restore a local wetland that is not already under its watch.

The nonprofit’s chairman, Gordon Smith, said the group is about six months from finalizing a deal to acquire the roughly 44-acre Newland Marsh from the California Department of Transportation.

“For the last year and a half, we’ve been saying [the purchase of Newland Marsh] would happen in six months and we’re still not there,” he said with a laugh. “But I really do think that six months should do it this time because we’re close to nailing down the funding, and then we have to go through the escrow process. It shouldn’t take more than six months.”

The conservancy currently oversees 140 acres of wetlands along Pacific Coast Highway, of which 128 acres have been restored. The nonprofit is responsible for the Talbert Marsh next to the Santa Ana River, the Magnolia Marsh next to the AES power plant and the Brookhurst Marsh between Magnolia and Brookhurst streets.

Smith, who helped start the conservancy in 1985, said the group has tried since 2011 to acquire the Newland Marsh at Beach Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway. Caltrans has owned the property since acquiring it in 1965 through eminent domain from Mills Land and Water Co.

“Caltrans had gone through the formal process of declaring the property surplus, which means that we’re eligible to acquire it,” Smith said.

Smith said another state agency, the California State Coastal Conservancy, is planning to buy the Newland Marsh from Caltrans and transfer it to the Huntington Beach group. The Coastal Conservancy has helped the local nonprofit in the past, funding the purchase of the Talbert and Brookhurst marshes.

Smith said he does not know how much the Newland Marsh will cost the Coastal Conservancy. He said Caltrans has done an appraisal on the land but the figure is confidential between the two state agencies.

“It’s moving ahead, and we’re optimistic that our friends up at the Coastal Conservancy will able to put together the funding package within the next couple of months,” Smith said. “If we’ve learned nothing else in the 30 years that we’ve been at this, it’s that we just need to be patient.”

At least one Huntington Beach resident hopes it will happen sooner rather than later.

George Sickinger, 73, and his wife live in one of the new townhomes on Abigail Lane in the Pacific Shores community near Newland Street. The only thing separating his home from the Newland Marsh is a metal fence, through which he can see an orange traffic barrier partially buried in the dirt.

Earlier this year, Sickinger watched several youths build a makeshift dirt bike trail, using the barrier as a ramp. Orange County sheriff’s deputies were called to the marsh, and the kids left after they were warned that they were trespassing. But the ramp remains.

“Since then there’s just more [litter] in there,” he said one afternoon as he looked at the marsh from his back patio.

There’s not much any one agency can do to prevent people from entering the marsh. Huntington Beach police have little jurisdiction in the area because it is state-owned land.

Orange County Public Works oversees 900 square feet of the marsh that it owns near a flood-control channel. County officials can clean up their small parcel but can’t touch the rest of the wetland, spokesman Shannon Widor said.

Sickinger has lived in the area only about a year but has become upset that it has taken the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy so long to acquire the marsh.

He said he would like to see the wetland improved and possibly even a bicycle trail built, since many people already enter the marsh to ride.

“There’s just so much potential here to make this thing right and a win-win for everybody,” Sickinger said.