Natural Perspectives -- Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray
Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray
Singing fish are sinking houses in Huntington Harbour.
In the 1960s a huge portion of Anaheim Bay was filled and developed.
Homes were built on concrete construction pads, which were held up by
wooden pilings driven into the muddy ocean bottom. Concrete bulkheads
that went below the mud line protected the pilings from direct contact
with water. The housing tract called Huntington Harbour was born.
Over the years currents and wave action eroded the mud that protected
the bulkheads in front of some homes. Then along came midshipmen fish.
They made a bad situation worse.
The midshipman is an unbelievably ugly, 10-inch-long fish that sings.
In the spring, males use their strong fins to excavate small caves for
nesting in the rocky intertidal zone. Then they hum to attract females
into the caves. The serenading males mate with one female after another,
remaining at their nest caves for three months to watch over the eggs and
raise the young.
In addition to these large males, there are smaller males that do not
build nests and do not hum. They simply hang around the nest site, hoping
to mate with a female while the dominant male isn’t looking. They
generally succeed. The nesting caves can fill with veritable orgies of a
dominant humming male, several interested females and a couple of smaller
males.
This behavior is all well and good when it occurs along some
uninhabited shoreline, but when it goes on under the houses in Huntington
Harbour -- and it is going on -- it wreaks havoc. Midshipmen fish have
excavated under the bulkheads of numerous homes, nesting under the
concrete pads that hold up the houses. Wave action and currents have
scoured out the mud from under the concrete, exposing the previously
buried wooden pilings to water. With the seawater comes more marine life,
including burrowing clams, called shipworms. They like to eat wood.
Shipworms have burrowed into the pilings like termites, devouring them
day and night.
Fifty-two homes now are at varying degrees of risk of failure.
Underwater video surveillance four years ago showed voids under 37
houses, some extending for nine to 12 feet under the pads. Under some
homes, the wooden supports had been totally eaten away.
To prevent further damage and save their homes, the affected
homeowners need to fix their bulkheads. Rather than do each job
individually, they banded together four years ago to save money and hired
a contractor. He will hire divers to fill the spaces under the houses
with concrete and will seal off the spaces with a barrier so waves and
midshipmen fish can’t get under the houses. All he needs is a permit from
the Coastal Commission. Getting that has turned out to be harder than the
homeowners thought.
The waters of Huntington Harbour are wildlife habitat. The houses have
either soft-bottom habitat or eelgrass habitat in front of them that
would be destroyed during bulkhead repair. The Coastal Commission said
that the habitat damage must be mitigated by improvement elsewhere before
the homes can be repaired. Forty-four homeowners have to pay for eelgrass
mitigation and eight have to pay for soft-bottom mitigation.
The homeowners hired someone to plant eelgrass and restore soft
bottom. The Bolsa Chica has a perfect spot for soft-bottom mitigation in
front of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy Interpretive Center. But restoring
that area requires paperwork from the Department of Fish and Game. The
county has a site in the Harbour for eelgrass mitigation, but that
requires paperwork from the county. The Coastal Commission can’t issue
permits for the repairs until all the mitigation paperwork is in order.
Therein lies the rub.
The county initially gave approval for eelgrass mitigation and some
consultants planted it nearly two years ago. But it was a red tide year
and the eelgrass died. Not good enough, said the Coastal Commission
staff. The eelgrass has to survive for five years. So the consultants
planted more. It died too. Bummer. Next the consultants proposed some
other kind of mitigation since what they were doing wasn’t working. The
commission said no, plant more eelgrass.
To make matters worse, the county may withdraw its permission to allow
mitigation on its site. It may need it all for its own eelgrass
mitigation project. That issue is pending.
Some homeowners have no eelgrass in front of their homes, only soft
bottom. They should be able to proceed separately, right? Hold on, not so
fast.
Fish and Game had to approve the soft bottom mitigation project at the
Bolsa Chica at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. They got around
to signing the papers last week. Finally, we thought, the mitigation
could proceed, some homes could be saved, and the Bolsa Chica could be
improved. Wrong again.
The contractors said it would be too expensive to do only the work on
those homes that needed soft-bottom mitigation. Besides, they said, when
they did the work, they’d trample the eelgrass in front of the
neighboring houses. Better to do it all at once, they said.
So restoration of this tiny bit of Bolsa Chica, and salvation of
people’s homes, will have to wait until the county and the Coastal
Commission and the consultants get all their ducks in a row. Meanwhile,
the fish keep nesting, the clams keep chomping, and the tide rolls in and
out twice a day.
* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and
environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 vicleipzig@aol.comf7 .
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