Last stop for mesa review

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- As the California Coastal Commission prepares to

review plans for a major development on the Bolsa Chica mesa,

environmentalists warn that the proposed residential community will

destroy a natural pool and create urban runoff that will upset the

delicate balance of the surrounding wetlands.

Although developers and environmentalists have fought over the land for

more than 25 years, the stakes are especially high this time around. The

commission probably will be the last governing body to review developer

Hearthside Homes’ plans to build 1,235 homes before the county gives

final approval to the project, Coastal Commissioner and City Councilwoman

Shirley Dettloff said. “It’s considered an extremely important decision

that the Coastal Commission will make.”

That makes the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, long at odds with Hearthside,

eager to convince the commission that a 5,200-square-foot vernal pool

should receive recognition under state law, said Jan Vandersloot, the

group’s co-founder. “A vernal pool is a very sensitive, disappearing type

of [pocket] wetland in California.”

The commission could block plans to fill the pool to make way for

construction, Vandersloot said.

But the slight land depression at the corner of Los Patos Avenue and Lynn

Street that creates an “alleged” pool during the rainy season doesn’t

deserve special protection, said Lucy Dunn, executive vice president for

Hearthside, formerly known as the Koll Real Estate Group Inc.

“It’s as much of a vernal pool as the Pacific Coast Highway is a vernal

pool,” she said.

The push by preservationists to protect what they believe to be sensitive

habitat includes keeping added pollution out of the area.

The planned homes on the 215-acre mesa will generate urban runoff, which

the developer plans to dispose of through five outfall pipes that drain

into the outer Bolsa Bay, Dunn said.

Rebecca Tuden of the state Environmental Protection Agency worries that

untreated waste could damage the nearby wetlands. “There are a lot of

contaminants that come from runoff,” she said.

Many blame runoff, which includes everything residents will dump into

storm drains, for the ongoing beach contamination plaguing Huntington

Beach.

But plenty of waste water already drains into the bay through the East

Garden Grove Wintersburg Channel, Dunn said.

“The water from our development will be cleaner than what it’s flowing

into,” she said.

To make up for the less than one acre of sensitive habitat Dunn says will

be affected by the development, Hearthside proposes to restore more than

two acres of “highly degraded,” “non-functioning” wetlands at the nearby

Fieldstone property at the end of Graham Street, she said.

“It’s the right area for the right kind of habitat,” she said.

The property, however, contains cancer-causing chemicals discovered in

April, which should preclude its use in a land swap, Tuden said.

The “hot spots” are in a small confined area, Dunn said. They will be

cleaned up and, in any event, other parts of the 42-acre site could be

used, she said.

The land trust, banking on an April court decision that prevented

relocating a 6.5 acre eucalyptus grove on the mesa, argues that restored

wetlands don’t measure up to the original.

“God made the world,” trust member Nancy Donaven said. “Are we going to

remake it?”

The commission will make a decision after the hearing tentatively

scheduled for November, but which may be pushed back to January, Dettloff

said.

“You’ll get a very fair hearing before this commission,” she said.