New interpretive center opening today

Alex Coolman

UPPER NEWPORT BAY--From the road, it looks like little more than a

berm of earth in the Back Bay hillside.

But the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, which opens today,

looks like considerably more when you get to its entrance.

The sleek, 10,000-square-foot building, which is dedicated mostly to

exhibits about the Back Bay ecosystem, received a few final touch-ups

Friday in preparation for its public debut.

Workers screwed on knobs for interactive displays and fastened pieces

of plexiglass with clamps and screws.

Grace Yick, a park ranger with the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve,

said the center probably will need to close down for a few weeks after

its opening in order to finish work on the exhibits.

But for now, she said, there are some interesting things to see, read

and experience.

The center’s theater will screen a video, filmed in the Back Bay, on

salt marshes.

“Our mud tunnel is very popular,” Yick said.

The mud tunnel, which takes visitors inside the world of the

underwater bay mud, features huge blow-ups of bird beaks plunging into a

subterranean display of worms and other creatures.

An accompanying display, illustrated with a color photograph, notes

that there can be up to 1,000 worms and “other tasty morsels” in a single

cubic foot of bay mud.

Yick said the near-invisibility of the center from the road has not

been a problem so far.

“It doesn’t seem to be that difficult for people to find,” she said.

FYI

* What: Grand opening of the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center

* When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today

* Where: 2301 University Drive, Newport Beach

* What else: The grand opening will include guest speakers, children’s

activities, group tours and a free breakfast.

* Phone: (949) 640-6746