Question of Dollars Complicates Decision on Restoring Wetlands : Environment: Limited tidal action can be brought to Ballona for $10 million. But a full-scale restoration could cost $50 million or more.

After fighting for years to save the Ballona Wetlands from destruction, environmentalists are struggling with how to nurse the area back to health.

The goal seems simple enough: restore a dynamic, self-sustaining tidal wetland to 260 acres of open land between Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey.

But like the long battle to save the area from development, the effort to create a coastal habitat where fish, wildlife and native plants can flourish in the heart of an urban area promises to be a time-consuming and costly process.

It will cost at least $10 million to restore even limited tidal action to the last major coastal wetland in Los Angeles County.

A full-scale program that would allow water levels to rise and fall freely with ocean tides could cost $50 million or more.

Most of the added expense would go toward raising the elevation of Culver Boulevard, nearby natural-gas wells and high-pressure pipelines by at least seven feet to prevent flooding.

Friends of Ballona Wetlands Chairwoman Ruth Lansford said that although the full-tidal option is the preferred choice because of its greater environmental benefits, cost is a major obstacle.

Lansford said the group, which battled successfully to protect the wetlands, faces a critical choice about which restoration plan to endorse.

“This is our last chance to restore a wetland connected to Santa Monica Bay,” Lansford told a meeting of 150 wetlands supporters recently in Westchester. “Do we go for broke or do we settle for less?”

The $10 million needed to do the limited-tidal restoration was pledged by developer Maguire Thomas Partners last fall in agreeing to settle the friends’ longstanding lawsuit challenging development of the massive Playa Vista project on 660 acres adjoining the wetland.

With the exception of a small parcel, the Santa Monica-based development firm promised not to build on about 260 acres of wetlands west of Lincoln Boulevard and south of Jefferson Boulevard. In exchange, the group all but agreed to endorse Maguire Thomas’ plans for building one of the biggest developments in Los Angeles history to the east of Lincoln Boulevard and on the north side of Ballona Creek.

The multibillion-dollar project would involve construction of 11,750 residential units, 5 million square feet of offices, 720,000 square feet of retail space, 2,400 hotel rooms, 25,000 parking spaces and a 40-acre marina with 750 boat slips.

A wetlands foundation has been established to plan for the restoration. It includes representatives of the friends group, Maguire Thomas, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and state Controller Gray Davis.

Galanter, a longtime member of the friends, said finding the money for the full-tidal plan will be a challenge. “Just because it’s inconceivable, doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” she said.

Among the possible sources of money to finance a full-tidal programs are the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Both ports have ambitious long-range plans for expanding their facilities by filling in hundreds of acres of the harbor, but the federal Clean Water Act requires them to offset or mitigate the environmental damage that such an expansion would cause. And Maguire Thomas and the friends have been trying to persuade the ports that Ballona Wetlands would be a suitable candidate for funding.

However, Lansford said, “it may be many years before that money is available.”

She said another potential source of funding is Southern California Edison Co.’s San Onofre nuclear power plant.

A 1989 study ordered by the California Coastal Commission found that cooling water drawn by the plant south of San Clemente is killing tons of kelp and fish. An environmental group has filed suit in federal court in San Diego seeking an end to the practice or creation of an environmental trust fund to offset the damage.

While the search for funding continues, scientists say there has been a steady decline in the number of birds and native plants that exist in the Ballona Wetlands, including the loss of the endangered California least tern, which no longer nests there.

By waiting too long on a restoration plan, Lansford said, environmentalists may be doing great harm to the wetlands.

The choice of restoration plans is further complicated by the fact that once the work has begun, Lansford said, it will not be possible to switch from the limited-tidal plan to full-tidal action without threatening the newly introduced wildlife and plants. “We do not want to be faced with the prospect of destroying wildlife to save it,” she said.

Sharon Lockhart, leader of a team of biologists hired by Maguire Thomas, said in an interview that the Ballona Wetlands ecosystem has basically crashed since 1981. In the last 10 years, she said, the diversity of species found at the wetlands has decreased along with numbers of individual birds, fish and plants.

She predicted that some of the fish and wildlife diversity will come back naturally when tidal action is restored, just as it did when floodgates were reopened at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach. But many of the native plants that have been lost will have to be reintroduced.

About 200 species of birds, including the endangered Belding savannah sparrow, visit the Ballona Wetlands each year. The California Department of Fish and Game, one of the myriad of state and federal agencies that must approve any wetland restoration plan, has expressed particular concern about protecting a habitat for the sparrow.

Howard Towner, chairman of the Biology Department at Loyola Marymount University and a member of the friends’ board of directors, said restoration efforts in Orange County’s Upper Newport Bay led to significant increases in the number of species and birds in the area.

“We have great hope that things can be done in a positive way that can benefit all of the Los Angeles area,” he said.

Tidal flows from Ballona Creek would feed expanded mud flats, he said. A freshwater marsh, fed by runoff from developed areas, would be created just west of Lincoln Boulevard, providing habitat for a number of endangered species.

In addition, he said, about six acres of coastal sand dunes at the western edge of the wetlands will be restored with native plants instead of ice plant.

Towner said restoration plans call for the entire area to be fenced to keep out dogs and cats. He said European red foxes, an introduced species that lives in the wetlands and “eats everything,” will have to be trapped and removed to protect other wildlife.

Another consultant, Noel Davis, predicted that the full-tidal plan would be “much, much better” for fish, shore birds and waterfowl.

But before any restoration work can occur, permits must be issued. To preserve options, Lockhart said, applications will be made for approval of both the limited- and full-tidal plans.

In an indication of just what lies ahead, she said, the permit process could take a year or two, followed by a phased effort over several years to re-create the wetlands.

“If we started processing permits today,” Lockhard said, “by the turn of the century, we would probably have a pretty good marsh.”