Environmentalists, Rejoice! Bolsa Chica Wetlands being restored!

[bertha katzenengel]

Huntington Beach, CA, my hometown, is in the national news this week -- and for good reason!

From the Associated Press:

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- The ocean flowed into historic wetlands yesterday for the first time in more than a century after bulldozers peeled back the last layer of an earthen dam. . . .

The event capped a two-year project that cost more than $100 million and shunted a portion of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway onto an overpass. . . .

The eight state and federal agencies involved in the project call it the largest and most ambitious restoration of coastal wetlands in the history of California, where 95 percent of saltwater marshes have been given over to development. . . .

"Not many wetlands have been restored in the world, especially in an oil field," said Dettloff,* who has fought for the wetlands for 30 years. "Even we locals sometimes forget that this was the second-largest functioning oil field in the state of California . . . since the 1930s."

(emphasis added)

* Shirley Dettloff, a member of the conservation group Amigos de Bolsa Chica and a former member of the California Coastal Commission.

One more snip: "Officials said it would take at least six hours for the ocean water to fill the 387-acre basin. The area had been separated from the ocean since 1899, when a duck-hunting club diked ponds to make it easier to catch their prey."



Three photos taken at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands last February. (The women in the first photo are Mrs. Venation (my beloved) in the foreground and my sister in the background. You can see how the area's under reconstruction.)







Here's another article, more detail from the L.A. Times. (I'd post an article from the Orange County Register (Huntington Beach is in that county) but I don't like that paper. :P)

[texpatriot2004]

1. Awesome. nm

[grassfed]

2. Congratulations to Amigos de Bolsa Chica!

Congratulations to Amigos de Bolsa Chica for demonstrating what citizens who refuse to be intimidated by oil companies and developers can achieve. This is very very good news. Thank you.
http://www.bolsachicalandtrust.org/restoration.html

Maybe Bolsa Chica can be a model for restoring the New Orleans wetlands.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=500

[NNadir]

3. Cool Bertha.

Congrats.