Jenny MarderMark Bixby is ready for the...

Jenny Marder

Mark Bixby is ready for the mud. After documenting seasonal and

agricultural changes every week for more than a year on the plot land

where developers hope to build 171 homes, he knows better than to

come unprepared.

He is clad in a blue checked shirt, floppy sun hat and worn hiking

boots. A bright orange ruler sticks out of his pocket, a digital

camera hangs around his neck.

He uses the camera to snap pictures of native plant life sprouting

up between farmland crops and water that collects throughout the

site, forming puddles, ponds and small lakes. He places the ruler in

pictures that he later sends to the California Coastal Commission to

ensure that they are seeing the plants to scale.

The boots get him through the mud.

Bixby, spokesman for the local activist group Neighbors for

Wintersburg Restoration, is trying to prove that an undeveloped lot

near his home should be designated as a wetlands site, thus saving it

from the hands of developer and owner Shea Homes, which wants to

build a 171-home development called Parkside Estates there.

Parkside Estates would feature 171 single family homes, 8.2 acres

of public parks and 3.3 acres of open space. The project was approved

by the City Council last October and is now in the hands of the

Coastal Commission.

As it is now, the empty lot is not much to look at. Most of the

field is covered in dense barley grass -- “grass on steroids,” Bixby

calls it.

Dogs drink from the dirty pond water. Seashell remnants and

paintball shells are carved into the soil. Parts of an old, red

tractor and an abandoned tire sit unnoticed at the edge of the grass.

It smells like eucalyptus, wet grass and mud.

Over the past year, Bixby has taken 1,451 pictures to prove that

the land has characteristics of wetlands.

Under federal definition, an area must pass a three-pronged test

to qualify as a wetland. The criteria includes chronic “ponding,” or

water that collects for 18 consecutive days, water based soil also

known as hydric soil and certain types of vegetation such as

pickleweed, brass buttons, rabbit foot grass and salt grass.

Last week, Bixby’s wife, Julie, sent a letter to six state and

federal representatives urging them to lobby for Proposition 50 funds

to purchase the Parkside site.

Proposition 50, known as the Water Security, Clean Drinking Water

and Coastal and Beach Protection Act, which passed last November,

provides $300 million in funding for restoring, purchasing and

protecting wetlands in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Of the remaining funds, “the Wildlife Conservation Board shall

give priority to the acquisition of not less than 100 acres

consisting of upland mesa areas, including wetlands therein, adjacent

to the state ecological reserve in the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Orange

County,” according to the proposition.

The letter went out to state Sen. Ross Johnson, Assemblyman Tom

Harman, state Sen. Michael Machado, Assemblyman Joseph Canciamilla,

state Sen. Byron Sher and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley. Machado and

Canciamilla are drafting legislation that will determine how

Proposition 50 funding is spent and Sher and Pavley, Julie Bixby

said, were chosen because they oversee all budget allocations.

“I strongly urge you to include language in [senate bill 21], and

any other appropriations measure involving Proposition 50, that will

provide for the acquisition of Shea Homes’ 50-acre Bolsa Chica

property,” the letter begins.

She goes on to argue that the land is part of the Bolsa Chica

ecosystem and that restoring it as a wetlands would improve water

quality and secure natural habitats.

“Open space is what nature intended,” Julie Bixby said. “A

wetlands is what nature intended. Rather than add to the traffic, the

noise, the crowding in the schools, we can add to the richness of the

environment, providing land for habitat-sensitive plants, birds and

wildlife.”

If restored, water would be diverted from the Wintersburg Channel

and into the Parkside Estates property, Mark Bixby said. The water

would wind through curves and ponds in the property filtering out

pollution and reducing the amount of urban runoff.

But Ron Metzler, vice president of planning and development for

Shea Homes thinks that Shea’s proposed development will be a greater

benefit to the land than a restored wetlands could ever be.

“I personally think Mark has legitimate worries, but I would hope

that someone thinks of the thousands of people who would benefit from

this project,” Metzler said.

After the Federal Emergency Management Agency came out with new

flood maps in 2000, requiring Shea Properties to raise the project 11

feet from ground level to prevent flooding, the company hired an

engineering firm to perform a detailed watershed study of more than

3,840 acres, which included Parkside Estates and the surrounding

neighborhood.

Based on the study, Shea has decided to expand its project to

include an estimated $20 million in major improvements that would not

only allow it to build at a lower elevation -- 4.6 feet -- but would

also benefit 1,000 acres that surround the project, removing 7,000

homes and businesses from mandatory flood insurance, Metzler said.

Improvements would include widening the Wintersburg Channel by 12

feet, expanding the storm drain system and adding two new pumps to

the Slater pump station.

Adding storm drains would take pressure off the main drains and

reduce the potential for major flooding and adding the new pumps

would increase the capacity of the Slater pump station by 40%, said

Metzler.

Shea Homes is also proposing to add a new water treatment facility

that would improve the quality of the storm runoff as well as a

traffic signal at the main Parkside Estates entrance to alleviate

traffic.

“It’s easier for someone to cut your chest open and work on your

heart then it is for Ron to do all the improvements on this project,”

said Laer Pearc, a Shea Homes spokesman.

But the Bixbys are not convinced.

“The county has not sat down and analyzed the flood study, and

we’re going to make sure that county flood control takes a good long

look at Shea’s plans,” Mark Bixby said.

Perhaps the most daunting obstacle is in the language of Prop 50,

which has a “willing seller” clause. For the Parkside lot to be

considered for a grant, the owner would have to be willing to sell

the land.

“It’s a catch-22 situation,” Julie Bixby said. “There’s tons of

money out there, but the catch is you’ve got to own the property

first. We thought we might take the one in one hundred chance, and

maybe they’d be willing to negotiate.”

Metzler said that Shea Homes is not in the market to sell, but did

say that the company has an open mind.

“For the right price and terms, and both are of equal importance,

we could be a willing seller,” he said.

And so, Mark Bixby continues his diligent study of the land.

The ponding activity was less prominent than he was hoping for

after last week’s heavy rainfall, but he swears that the native

plants are more pervasive than they were a week ago.

The native vegetation is hard to see because it is often covered

in barley grass. Mark Bixby insists that the farming is a scheme to

hide the evidence of wetland behavior.

“Farming is the great all-purpose wonder excuse to justify taking

out all vegetation,” he said.

Brass buttons, native to wetlands, have sprouted in large clumps

along the channel area and in sparser quantities along the

city/county border, extending into the field. There is also rabbit

foot grass and salt grass in the city section and an abundance of

pickleweed in the far east corner.

“The land is indicating to us it want to be a wetlands,” Mark

said. “I’m excited about all the brass buttons sprouting up in the

nasty mud. The land wants to be what the land wants to be.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at jenny.marder@latimes.com.