The next battle at Bolsa Chica

A new flashpoint in the Bolsa Chica battles is emerging just as a

bigger fight over the wetlands comes to a close.

Landowner Don Goodell said the California Coastal Commission’s

approval of Hearthside Home’s bid to build 349 homes on the upper

mesa paves the way for residential development of his nearby parcel.

Native American groups and the Bolsa Chica Land Trust have lobbied

to preserve the six-acre site, sandwiched between Hearthside Homes

and a smaller 50-acre lot owned by Shea Properties, arguing it’s home

to endangered species and a major archeological site. Several

veterans groups have also weighed in, arguing that World War II era

bunkers on the site should be preserved.

Things really heated up last week when Goodell was ordered to stop

cutting down trees on the site that might have been home to

endangered raptors. The dispute started after area resident Mark

Bixby said he noticed several trees on the site had been marked for

felling.

“It was a rather inflammatory act,” said Bixby, who later notified

Land Trust President Marc Stirdivant. Eventually coastal commission

enforcement analyst Andrew Willis intervened, but Goodell had already

cut down two of the trees. Willis ordered Goodell to stop

immediately.

“If it’s major vegetation, it requires a coastal development

permit,” Willis said. “Because they are a raptor habitat, the trees

are of importance ecologically.”

Goodell said he felled the trees because two children had injured

themselves while swinging on weak tree limbs.

“We tried to put up a no-trespassing sign,” he said, “but that was

gone in a day.”

Goodell said he’d apply for the permits and continue to move

forward with plans to build homes on the site. He said he’d begun to

gather county development permits and plans to put a project before

the Coastal Commission.

“Whatever they let me build, we’ll build,” he said.

Nothing could be built on the site until Hearthside got its

approval from the Coastal Commission, Goodell said. The small

six-acre plot will rely on roads built by Hearthside and water

brought in by the agency. In March, the Coastal Commission approved a

349-unit Hearthside development in a deal that is expected to see the

state purchase 102 acres of wetlands to be preserved as open space.

Goodell’s neighbor, Shea Homes, also plans to present a development

plan to the commission for 171 homes on a low-lying area that

activists including Bixby contend could be a wetland.

Stirdivant said he’d like to see a government agency purchase both

the Shea Homes site and the Goodell property, but so far negotiations

with Goodell aren’t yielding many results.

“He has a very inflated idea of what the property is worth,”

Stirdivant said.

Besides the endangered species, Stirdivant said he wants to work

with Native Americans to protect the historical significance of the

land.

Known as ORA-83, the site is believed to have contained a

substantial settlement, a ceremonial center and a cemetery some 8,000

years ago, archeologist Patricia Martz of Cal State Los Angeles said.

It’s also believed to have been the manufacturing site for

hand-carved objects called cog stones. Cog stones are doughnut-size

objects shaped like cogs and usually carved from basalt.

“No site in the world has produced as many cog stones [as Bolsa

Chica],” Martz said in an earlier interview with the Independent.

“Over 500 have been produced from this site. Other sites have only

produced a few.”

The purpose of the artifacts is unknown, but they were believed to

have been ceremonial objects of some sort, Martz said, such as game

pieces or astronomy tools used to map out the sky.

Their relevance is a mystery, and so is a strange similarity

between the basalt cog stones unearthed at the mesa and similar

sandstone objects found in Chile. Archeologists are still studying

the remains to determine the relation.

A World War II-era bunker is also located on the site, but Goodell

contends the building was never completed or used by the military.

“There is certainly nothing to be memorialized,” said Goodell, a

World War II vet.

“The money would be better spent for other memorials.”