An environmental agenda for the new council

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

Winds from the first storm of winter are whipping rain against our

windows, bringing needed relief from the drought of summer. Huge

waves are lashing the beach and pier. Even Talbert Lake is filling up

again. As far as the weather is concerned, change is in the air.

Can’t say the same for the local election. Things are going to

remain about the same and, in our opinion, that’s a good thing.

The voters stuck pretty much to the status quo, recycling former

Mayor and Councilman Dave Sullivan, replacing Peter Green with his

wife Cathy and electing Planning Commissioner Jill Hardy. These three

are familiar with environmental issues and can be counted on to

protect the high quality of life we presently enjoy.

Retired police officer Gil Coerper is more of an unknown, but we

think he’ll make a fine addition to the lineup on the dais. It will

be interesting to see Coerper and Sullivan square off on issues

affecting salaries and benefits for city employees. They’ll be facing

hard choices in these tough economic times. We wish them all well in

their new jobs.

Wave columnist Bill Borden doesn’t seem nearly as pleased with the

election results as we are. He complained that the “Citizens Against

Everything” will want to protect the “hootie” owls, save the bean

field and preserve our city’s parks and open space. Like these are

bad things!

Wake up and smell the sagebrush, Bill. Growing numbers of citizens

in this town care about the environment. They recognize that humans

depend upon a healthy environment for their own good health. The very

air that we breathe and the water that we drink can be contaminated

by the actions of man and cleaned by the actions of nature.

We’re pleased with the wave of environmental awareness that has

washed over our community. No matter how the minority feels about it,

we have a new council that is strongly committed to environmental

protection.

We’re sure that this new council will also help build business in

town to generate the funds required to run the city. We’re sure that

they recognize the need to do something about our crumbling

infrastructure. We hope that they have the intelligence, vision and

drive that it will take to solve these problems.

The council will have many broad-based issues to deal with in the

next few years, but the focus of our columns is the environment. With

that in mind, here is our wish list for an environmental agenda:

Protect the Bolsa Chica, as much of it as possible, including the

bean field. That little parcel was once a wetland, and it can be

again.

Stay the course with restoration of the Bolsa Chica lowlands. Keep

a close eye on the cleanup of toxics in the lowlands, and ensure that

the restoration plan is one that will maximize biological diversity.

This means that an ocean opening will be necessary. The current

restoration plan will not introduce flood control channel water

through the restored part and onto the beach. This plan should help

clean the ocean water by passing it through the pickle weed,

cordgrass and eelgrass that will grow in the newly restored area.

Continue to divert summertime runoff from the flood control

channels so it doesn’t pollute our beaches. Monitor the progress of

the Orange County Sanitation District in cleaning up the sewer

outfall. We really shouldn’t be dumping all those pollutants and

sewage into the ocean -- it’s 2002. We know better.

Protect the Huntington Beach Wetlands by continuing to defend the

city’s interest in the pending lawsuit brought by Mills Land and

Water Company. The owners would like to develop even the wetlands

portion of their property. Sorry, that’s against the law. We’d like

to see the Talbert Marsh restoration extend all the way to Beach

Boulevard. Some day it will.

We’d like the City Council to raise public awareness of the need

to recycle, compost, and conserve electricity, natural gas and water.

We’d like to see the City Council promote planting of native and

drought-tolerant plants on city property. We’d also like to see them

encourage homeowners to landscape with native and drought-tolerant

plants.

Finally, we hope the new council will continue the fight to

restore, improve and reopen the Shipley Nature Center.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.