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Health & Fitness

Ballona Wetlands: Part 4, Our Long Road Trip Together

Part 4: The Car We Choose is Irrelevant; It’s Just a Means to the End

Nothing informs better than experience, and Californians now have much wetland restoration experience.  One indisputable fact is wetland biota recover very quickly after the land has been re-contoured, provided proper techniques are used.  Using the San Dieguito example, hundreds of acres of upland and degraded wetland were essentially scraped bare by many large bulldozers and scrapers, and massive volumes of dirt were relocated from one area to another.  However, wetland plants and the six inches of soil beneath them were first carefully salvaged, preserved and propagated in the nursery while all the re-contouring was done. Then, salvaged soils and prepared plant cuttings, along with thousands of nursery-reared plants, were carefully replaced on the new land surface that had been reshaped so high tides would touch much more land than before (166 acres, to be exact). 

The results have been no less than astounding (Figures 8-13).  Just one year after the end of construction, San Dieguito already meets most of the very stringent performance standards required by the Coastal Commission.  The remaining standards are just a matter of time and should be reached by 2014 even though habitat construction was not completed until 2011 (http://marinemitigation.msi.ucsb.edu/mitigation_projects/wetland/index.html).

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See for yourself next time you drive to San Diego.  Just exit the I-5 at Via De La Valle, turn east, and then right at San Andres.  You can’t miss it.  See the huge photo archive at http://sdlagoon.com/photoarch.htm

The goal at San Dieguito, as it is for Ballona, was to create, restore or enhance wetland habitat in order to produce a full tidal system supporting a variety of wetland and upland habitats including some designed to support endangered species.  That large scale, mechanized excavation and grading was the car chosen for the road trip had little bearing on the final destination, other than the time taken to get there.  San Dieguito could never have been restored to its present configuration in a hundred years with volunteers and hand tools.  In fact, the notion that large numbers of interested public could be recruited to construct habitat on this scale is a fallacy.  At San Dieguito, the regional River Park organization is unable to recruit occasional groups to effectively weed small upland areas.  At Ballona, a dedicated twice monthly weeding effort by Friends of Ballona Wetlands has taken 25 years to restore 2 acres of dune habitat suitable for the endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly.

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The Ballona restoration will cover an area nearly 30% larger than San Dieguito, and in such a densely populated area where the human benefit of high quality habitat is so scarce and badly needed, we should not wait that long, nor settle for anything less than a rapid, comprehensive restoration.  Mechanized excavation and grading must be used, or we will be pedaling down the highway forever on our bicycles, never reaching our destination in our lifetimes, or before our tires wear out for that matter.

 

Litigation:  Our Third Branch of Government

Remember that from grade school civics class?  Legislative, Executive and Judicial.  The courts are there for good reason!  They are not just a last resort, and should not be viewed that way.  They are our third branch of government.  I have never known a major, modern development project (be it natural habitat, or a shopping mall) advance from an approved EIR to construction without having to navigate a lawsuit.  It’s just become part of the process, and SMBRC should acknowledge this, accept it, and plan for its inevitability. 

Judges are appointed to decide if a case has merits, and we should look forward to a project successfully navigating CEQA case law, which is very complicated.  Yes, it slows down the project and costs money, but at least when we are finished we know we have turned over every stone.  Someone will always be unhappy about the outcome (and hopefully won’t suggest a Constitutional Amendment), but that’s always the case in our democracy.  As Winston Churchill said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”  Nothing worthwhile is instant.

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The goals of a Ballona restoration are the long standing goals of our state – indeed our nation - and unless we are planning to secede, we should stop shouting about independence.  How we achieve those goals at Ballona will and should be debated, and no one should pretend to ignore the opinions of any.  All opinions, however, will be required to stand on their own merits, and those that do not advance on facts, should not.  No amount of shouting will change or create facts.  Likewise, litigation must be expected, but litigation without merit should be short-lived. 

The ultimate plan of a comprehensive Ballona restoration will not look exactly like any of the plans brought forward in the EIR, but rather what ultimately emerges from the CEQA and subsequent permitting processes.  If the SMBRC and permitting agencies follow that process openly and transparently, give all ideas fair consideration and validate or dismiss each with facts, the Ballona will be restored in a very good way.  Construction will move rapidly and biota will take up residence long before we finish decorating their new home.  We know this to be true, because we have taken this road trip so many times before.  Let’s look forward to reaching that familiar destination.

 

Dr. David W. Kay is President of the Board of Directors of Friends of Ballona Wetlands. He led a team that restored the 440-acre San Dieguito Wetlands complex in northern San Diego County on lands historically in filled by an airfield, waste treatment lagoons and agriculture.

 

 

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